GIFT  OF 

Library 


LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY  MONOGRAPHS 


HISTORY  AND  ECONOMICS 
IVo.  1 


THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
1789-1833 

WITH  A  SUMMARY  OF  THE  PERIOD  BEFORE  THE  ADOPTION 
OF  THE  CONSTITUTION 


BY 

ORRIN   LESLIE   ELLIOTT,   PH.  D. 

Of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University 


PALO  ALTO,  CALIFORNIA 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 

SEPTKMBEB,  1892 


PRICE  ONE  DOLLAR 


LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY  PUBLICATIONS 


No.  I.  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES,  1789-1833.  With  a  Sum- 
mary of  the  Period  before  the  Adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution. By  ORRIN  LESLIE  ELLIOTT,  Ph.  D.  pp.  272. 
Price  $1.00. 

No.  2.  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  CONDUC- 
TIVITY OF  A  COPPER  WIRE  IN  VARIOUS 
DIELECTRICS.  By  FERNANDO  SANFORD,  M.  S. 
[In  Press.] 


ADDRESS 

THE  REGISTRAR, 

Palo  Alto,  California. 


LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY  MONOGRAPHS 


HISTORY  AXD  ECONOMICS 
IVo.  1 


THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
'1789-1833  * 

WITH  A  SUMMARY  OF  THE  PERIOD  BEFORE  THE  ADOPTION 
OF  THE  CONSTITUTION 


BY 

ORRIN  LESLIE  ELLIOTT,  PH.  D. 

Of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University 


PALO  ALTO,  CALIFORNIA 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 
SEPTEMBER,  1892 


PRICE  ONE  DOLLAR 


"55**^ 
%HIVEKSIT7J 


COPYRIGHT,  1892, 
BY  0.  L.  ELLIOTT. 


CONTENTS. 


VV/vi  I>AQE' 

I.      THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD, 5 

II.      THE    TARIFF    OF   1789,   AND    HAMILTON'S    REPORT 

ON   MANUFACTURES,    -  67 

III.  COMMERCE   VerSUS    MANUFACTURES,  113 

IV.  THE    AMERICAN    SYSTEM,    -                                                   -  163 
V.      THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION,               -           -  215 


THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD. 

The  American  colonies  naturally  inherited  the  polit- 
ical economy  of  Europe,  and  of  one  phase  of  it  they 
were  the  unfortunate  victims.  The  colonial  system  has 
supplied  material  for  endless  harangue  and  denunciation, 
and  writers  of  a  certain  class  have  exhausted  the  vocab- 
ulary of  invective  in  endeavoring  to  characterize  the 
tyranny  of  the  mother  country  toward  her  defenceless 
colonies.  That  England's  policy  was  one  of  "  deliberate 
and  malignant  selfishness,"  as  even  Lecky  affirms,*  may 
be  granted,  if  the  words  be  not  understood  too  severely. 
Judged  by  modern  standards  it  was  so.  The  interests 
of  the  colonies  were  made  strictly  subordinate  to  those 
of  the  mother  country,  and  her  legislation  bore  with 
irritating  severity  upon  the  expanding  industrial  life  of 
the  New  World.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  a 
malignant  intention  on  the  part  of  English  statesmen 


*  2  Lecky's  Hist,  of  18th  Century,  8, 11. 

f5) 


6  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

to  oppress  the  colonies.  In  the  political  economy 
of  the  time,  the  prosperity  of  one  nation  seemed  to 
demand  the  pulling  down  of  others,  and  self-aggrandize- 
ment had  almost  universal  sway,  in  home  not  less  than 
in  colonial  administration.  Yet  the  English  govern- 
ment was  as  generous  toward  its  colonial  subjects  as 
toward  its  home  subjects,  when  such  generosity  did  not 
run  counter  to  generally  accepted  economic  doctrines.* 
Indeed,  in  applying  economic  principles  common  to  the 
age,  England  was  far  less  oppressive  than  other  powers; 
and  the  favor  of  princes — sometimes  for  selfish  purposes, 
sometimes  from  indifference — left  the  colonies  a  compar- 
atively free  field  for  development.  And  in  the  general 
economic  notions  which  underlay  the  policy  of  the 
mother  country,  the  colonies  in  the  main  acquiesced. 

The  economic  system  which  dominated  England  dur- 
ing the  colonial  period  was  the  natural  and  perhaps 
necessary  outgrowth  of  the  time.  Broadly  speaking,  it 
was  an  assertion,  in  legislation,  of  the  new  national  life 
which  marked  the  transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern 
times.  Abnormal  as  it  was,  it  realized,  though  crudely, 
what  was  most  potent  in  the  new  industrial  movement. 
Medievalism  had  not  been  favorable  to  trade  or  com- 
merce. The  church  sternly  repressed  the  desire  for 
riches,  and  accounted  worldly  activity  an  evil.  Neces- 
sary exchanges  must  conform  strictly  to  the  justum  pre- 
tium,  or  cost  price,  and  commerce  for  gain  was  held  to  be 
wrong,  f  But  the  growth  of  an  industrial  and  commer- 
cial spirit  was  encouraged  in  various  ways.  The  Cru- 
sades, the  revival  of  classical  learning,  especially  the 


*  See  Cunningham's  Politica  and  Economics,  54,  66 ;    also,  Adam 
Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  4,  Ch.  7. 
t  See  Ashley's  English  Economic  History,  126  et  seg. 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  7 

new  discoveries  and  inventions,  stirred  the  blood  of  all 
Europe  ;  and  gradually  out  of  feudalism  emerged  a  num- 
ber of  powerful  states  whose  rivalries  extended  to  com- 
merce. In  the  pettiness  of  these  rivalries,  industry  was 
saved  from  being  plundered  by  the  recognition  of  its 
immense  importance  in  the  new  political  struggles.  To 
build  up  manufactures  as  the  great  resource  of  the  state 
became  the  object  of  rulers,  and  a  long  series  of  restric- 
tions, wise  and  foolish,  was  the  fruit  of  their  activity. 

These  new  movements,  the  first  fruits  of  national  self- 
consciousness,  came  in  time  to  be  bulwarked  and  ex- 
tended by  certain  economic  doctrines  known  as  the 
"  mercantile  system."  *  The  application  of  this  system 
to  the  English  colonies  implied  no  feeling  of  unfriendli- 
ness toward  them.  The  action  was  purely  commercial, 
though  at  the  same  time  determined  by  self-interest 
and  with  no  recognition  of  the  colonies  as  independent 
factors,  politically  or  industrially.  Regulations  affect- 
ing them  were  determined  upon  with  regard  to  their 
effect  upon  the  commerce  and  industries  of  the  mother 

*  The  economic  errors  of  this  system  have  been  summarized  as  fol- 
lows :  It  over-estimated  the  importance  of  gold  and  silver,  often  con- 
founding them  with  wealth,  and  measuring  the  prosperity  of  a  country 
by  the  excess  of  gold  imported  over  that  exported.  It  unduly  exalted 
foreign  over  domestic  trade,  and  manufactures  over  agriculture ;  this 
involved  the  balance-of-trade  error,  leading  to  what  Hamilton  styled 
* '  the  vain  project  of  selling  everything  and  buying  nothing."  It  placed 
too  high  an  estimate  on  the  value  of  a  dense  population  as  an  element 
of  national  strength.  It  invoked  too  readily  state  aid  for  commercial 
purposes,  filling  the  statute  books  with  vexatious  restrictions,  and  the 
borders  of  every  little  state  with  petty  and  hampering  custom-houses. 
See  Encyc.  Brit,  (ninth  ed.),  article  Pol.  Econ.  (enlarged  and  reprinted 
as  Ingram' s  History  of  Political  Economy).  The  spirit  of  the  mercan- 
tile system  is  admirably  illustrated  in  23  George  II.,  Ch.  13,  Laws  of 
1750,  enforcing  heavy  penalties  for  enticing  artificers  out  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, or  for  exporting  utensils  of  the  woolen  and  silk  manufactures.  See 
especially  the  preamble.  20  Statutes  at  Large,  p.  14. 


8  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

country.*  They  were  chiefly  valued  for  the  market 
they  afforded  for  British  manufactures,  the  carrying 
trade  of  which  accrued  to  British  seamen,  and  for 
what  they  could  produce  to  supplement  the  agri- 
culture of  England,  or  as  raw  materials  for  her  man- 
ufactures. This  was  considered  the  natural  and  proper 
function  of  colonies,  and  the  general  theory  held  that 
natural  obstacles  were  sufficient  to  prevent  the  colonies 
from  engaging  in  trades  or  manufactures  prejudicial  to 
the  interests  of  the  mother  country.  Labor  was  dear  and 
scarce,  and  machinery  and  skill  almost  entirely  lacking. 
Fabrics  could  be  obtained  from  England  much  cheaper 
than  the  colonies  could  make  them,  and  there  seemed 
little  danger  of  collision.  Yet  British  interests  were  not 
content  with  these  general  safeguards.  In  spite  of  the 
poverty  of  the  colonies  and  their  manifest  dependence 
upon  England,  there  was  constant  fear  lest  manufactures 
should  somehow  take  root  in  them.  Long  before  parlia- 
ment was  aroused  to  the  political  dangers  lurking  in 
colonial  charters  and  customs,  English  merchants  and 

*  The  Navigation  Act  of  1660  begins :  "  For  the  increase  of  shipping 
and  encouragement  of  the  navigation  of  this  nation,  wherein  under  the 
good  providence  and  protection  of  God,  the  wealth,  safety,  and  strength 
of  this  kingdom  is  so  much  concerned."  The  preamble  to  the  Wool 
Act  of  1699  defines  its  purpose  as  follows:  "Forasmuch  as  wooll  and 
the  woollen  manufactures  of  cloth,  serge,  bayes,  kerseys,  and  other  stuffs 
made  or  mixed  with  wooll,  are  the  greatest  and  most  profitable  commod- 
ities of  this  kingdom,  on  which  the  value  of  lands  and  the  trade  of  the 
nation  do  chiefly  depend;  and  whereas  great  quantities  of  the  like 
manufactures  have  of  late  been  made,  and  are  daily  increasing  in  the 
kingdom  of  Ireland,  and  in  the  English  plantations  in  America,  and 
are  exported  from  thence  to  foreign  markets  heretofore  supplied  from 
England,  which  will  inevitably  sink  the  value  of  lands  and  tend  to  the 
ruin  of  the  trade  and  the  woollen  manufactures  of  this  realm ;  for  the 
prevention  whereof,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  the  woollen  manu- 
factures within  this  kingdom,  be  it  enacted,"  etc.  10  Statutes  at  Large, 
249. 


•  THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  9 

manufacturers  were  alive  to  the  possibilities  of  colonial 
competition.  Everything  except  this  they  might  forgive; 
but  wherever  an  incipient  manufacture  showed  itself, 
they  were  swift,  through  parliament,  to  strike  at  it  with 
restrictive  or  prohibitive  legislation.  "  The  greatest  and 
most  general  fear,  and,  indeed,  what  the  colonies  of  late 
seem  to  threaten  us  with,"  wrote  Cunningham, "  is  their 
going  into  manufactures,  and  thereby  supplying  them- 
selves with  what  they  now  take  from  us.  If  this  was 
likely  to  happen,  the  vigilance  of  our  legislature  would 
doubtless  take  measures  to  prevent  it.  ...  Nothing, 
certainly,  would  create  greater  heart-burnings  and  dis- 
content in  Great  Britain,  than  her  colonies  going  into 
manufactures.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  can  be  so 
agreeable,  or  so  much  for  the  interest  of  both,  as  the 
colonies  turning  their  whole  thoughts  and  powers  to  the 
cultivation  of  their  lands."  *  . 

The  beginning  of  commercial  legislation  which  bore 
upon  the  colonies  was  the  famous  Navigation  Act  of 
1651.  f  This  act,  passed  in  no  spirit  of  hostility  to  the 
colonies,  was  in  pursuance  of  Cromwell's  far-reaching 
policy  to  secure  the  commercial  and  maritime  supremacy 
of  England,  and  was  aimed  particularly  at  the  Dutch, 
who  were  then  monopolizing  the  carrying  trade  of  the 
world.  J  The  commerce  of  the  colonies,  until  then  too 


*  Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce,  by  J.  Cunningham  ( ?),  pp.  194, 197 : 
London,  1770. 

t  The  Navigation  Act  is  usually  dated  from  1660,  for  when  the  Com- 
monwealth was  overthrown  the  laws  of  Cromwell  were  declared  invalid. 
The  Navigation  Act  was  re-enacted  with  the  addition  noted  in  the  text. 

\  The  Navigation  Act  was  not,  of  course,  a  new  departure  in  English 
legislation,  nor  was  it  the  first  assertion  of  English  control  over  colonial 
commerce.  A  statute  of  Richard  II,  in  1381  (cited  in  Chalmers'  Polit- 
ical Annals,  p.  257),  enacted  "  that  to  increase  the  navy  of  England,  no 


10  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

slight  to  attract  much  attention,  was  becoming  import- 
ant, and  rapidly  increasing.  The  Act  provided  that  all 
commerce  between  England  and  the  rest  of  the  world 
should  be  conducted  in  English  or  colonial  ships.*  The 
Act  of  1660  further  provided  that  certain  enumerated 
articles  of  colonial  production  should  not  be  exported, 
even  in  English  ships,  to  the  general  markets  of  the 
world,  but  only  to  England  itself,  f  The  supplementary 
act  of  1673  provided  that  articles  of  European  growth  or 
manufacture  imported  into  the  colonies  should  first  pass 

goods  or  merchandise  shall  be  either  exported  or  imported,  but  only  in 
ships  belonging  to  the  king's  subjects."  The  patents  granted  by  Henry 
VII  to  the  Cabots  provided  that  whatever  commerce  was  the  result  of 
their  discoveries  must  be  brought  to  England.  In  his  instructions  to 
Berkeley  in  1639,  Charles  I  directed  him  "to  oblige  the  masters  of 
vessels,  freighted  with  the  productions  of  the  colony,  to  give  bond 
before  their  departure  to  bring  the  same  into  England ;  and  to  forbid  all 
trade  with  foreign  vessels,  except  upon  necessity,"  (Chalmers'  Political 
Annals,  p.  120).  Bancroft  (vol.  I,  p.  146)  gives  the  date  as  1641. 

*  "  The  Act  was  leveled  against  Dutch  commerce,  and  was  but  a  pro- 
tection of  British  shipping ;  it  contained  no  clause  relating  to  a  colonial 
monopoly,  or  specially  injurious  to  an  American  colony.  Of  itself  it 
inflicted  no  wound  on  Virginia  or  New  England."  1  Bancroft,  145. 

t  The  enumerated  articles  were  of  two  kinds.  1.  Those  not  produced 
in  the  mother  country  at  all.  This  was  intended  to  enable  English 
merchants  to  purchase  cheaper  in  the  colonies  and  sell  with  more  profit 
at  home,  and  also  to  make  Britain  the  center  of  an  important  carrying 
trade.  2.  Those  produced  in  England,  but  not  in  sufficient  quantities 
to  supply  the  demand.  These  were  to  be  so  managed  by  proper  duties 
as  to  be  always  dearer  than  the  home  product,  thus  preventing  compe- 
tition with  home  producers,  but  cheaper  than  the  same  articles  imported 
from  foreign  countries.  Other  articles  were  not  enumerated  because 
they  would  interfere  too  much  with  home  industries.  See  Adam  Smith's 
Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  IV,  Ch.  VII. 

The  most  important  of  the  enumerated  articles  were  sugar,  tobacco, 
cotton,  wool,  indigo,  ginger,  fustic,  and  all  other  dyeing  wood.  This 
affected  the  "West  Indies  and  southern  colonies  more  than  New  England, 
whose  great  staples,  lumber,  fish,  oil,  ashes,  and  furs,  were  free.  See  6 
Winsor,  7. 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  11 

through  England,  thus  subjecting  all  colonial  importa- 
tions, not  the  product  of  England,  to  double  charges  in 
the  interest  of  British  merchants. 

Still  there  was  a  loophole,  and  English  merchants 
began  to.  complain  of  the  intercolonial  trade,  which  had 
hitherto  been  permitted  on  the  supposition  that  it  would 
be  confined  to  local  demands.  A  profitable  trade,  how- 
ever, had  grown  up  between  New  England  and  the  South- 
ern colonies,  and  Eastern  merchants,  shipping  to  Boston 
tobacco  and  certain'  other  colonial  products  in  excess  of 
local  demand,  sent  the  surplus  to  continental  Europe 
without  the  payment  of  British  or  colonial  duties,  thus 
underselling  the  British  trader  who  had  paid  heavy 
duties.*  Accordingly,  it  was  enacted,  in  1672,  that  cer- 
tain specified  articles  of  intercolonial  traffic  should  first 
go  through  England  and  be  landed  on  English  docks,  or 
if  trade  were  direct  (and  this  was  the  practical  clause  of 
the  act,)  equivalent  duties  should  be  paid.f 

Later  acts  were  intended  to  supplement  the  general 
navigation  acts,  and  especially  to  secure  their  more  vig- 
orous enforcement.  But  the  measure  which  bore  heav- 
iest upon  the  northern  colonies  was  the  Molasses  Act  of 
1733.  A  considerable  trade  grew  up  between  these  col- 
onies and  the  French  and  Dutch  West  Indies,  consisting 
of  the  exchange  of  lumber,  fish,  and  horses  for  sugar, 
rum,  and  molasses.  The  British  Islands  protested  and  de- 
manded the  prohibition  of  this  trade  between  the  colo- 
nies and  foreign  islands.  The  Molasses  Act  was  nominally 
a  compromise,  but  the  duties  levied  on  importations 
from  the  foreign  islands  amounted  to  prohibition.  J 

*  See  6  Winsor,  8. 
t  8  Statutes  at  Large,  398. 

t  9d.  per  gallon  on  rum  and  spirits  and  6d.  on  molasses  and  syrup. 
16  Statutes  at  Large,  374.  See  also  2  Bancroft,  242  et  seq. 


12  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

The  Navigation  Laws  were  passed  in  the  interest  of 
commerce,  mainly  through  the  influence  of  British  ship- 
owners and  merchants.  The  manufacturing  interest  was 
not  less  prompt  in  appealing  to  the  government,  and 
with  even  greater  success.  On  this  point  the  nation  was 
practically  united,  and  from  1698  onwards  stringent  laws 
were  passed  designed  to  forestall  any  development  of 
colonial  manufacturing.  In  1696  a  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners for  Trade  and  Plantations  was  created,  with 
instructions  to  inquire  into  the  means  of  making  the 
colonies  most  useful  and  beneficial  to  England,  and 
especially  as  to  how  they  might  be  diverted  from  trades 
likely  to  prove  prejudicial  to  England.* 

Through  inquiries  of  special  agents  and  by  letters,  re- 
ports, and  statistics  from  colonial  governors,  the  board 
kept  well  informed  in  regard  to  colonial  affairs  and  from 
time  to  time  urged  upon  parliament  legislation  in  the 
interest  of  home  manufacturers.  In  1699  measures  were 
taken  to  crush  out  what  seemed  the  beginning  of  woolen 
manufactures  in  some  of  the  colonies.  The  household 
manufacture  of  coarse  fabrics  could  not  well  be  inter- 
fered with,  but  anything  further  was  prohibited  by  de- 
claring it  unlawful  to  load  wool  upon  any  horse,  cart,  or 
other  carriage,  f  In  1732  hats  were  added  to  the  pre- 
scribed list,  and  hat-makers  were  forbidden  to  have  more 
than  two  apprentices  each.  An  attempt  to  prohibit  the 
manufacture  of  pig  iron  was  temporarily  defeated  through 
the  influence  of  the  colonial  agents;  but  the  production 
became  so  important  that,  owing  to  the  abundance  and 
cheapness  of  fuel,  the  colonies  were  able  to  undersell 

*  See  2  Bancroft,  73. 

t  In  part  an  extension  to  the  colonies  of  the  law  of  1660  directed 
against  Scotland  and  France  (Charles  II,  Chap.  32,  Laws  of  1660.) 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  13 

their  English  competitors.  The  matter  again  coming 
up  in  parliament,  the  iron  makers  succeeded  in  placing 
heavy  duties  on  American  pig  iron  imported  into  Eng- 
land. But  when  the  colonies  thereupon  turned  their 
attention  to  the  manufacture  of  steel  and  bar  iron  for 
.their  own  use,  they  interfered  with  another  and  more 
powerful  group  of  English  manufacturers,  who  in  turn 
appealed  to  the  government.  Parliament  then  prohib- 
ited the  manufacture  of  steel  in  the  colonies,  even  for 
their  own  consumption.  All  furnaces  were  ordered  to 
be  destroyed  as  nuisances,  but  as  some  sort  of  compensa- 
tion, the  free  admission  of  pig  and  bar  iron  into  England 
was  provided  for.*  Presently  the  colonies  found  that 

*  Pig  iron  could  be  imported  free  of  duty  into  all  parts  of  Great  Brit- 
ain ;  bar  iron  only  into  the  port  of  London,  and  it  must  not  be  taken 
more  than  ten  miles  from  London,  nor  re-exported. 

The  preamble  reads :  "  Whereas  the  importation  of  bar  iron  from  his 
Majesty's  colonies  in  America,  into  the  port  of  London,  and  the  importa- 
tion of  pig  iron  from  the  said  colonies,  into  any  port  of  Great  Britain, 
and  the  manufacture  of  such  bar  and  pig  iron  in  Great  Britain,  will  be 
a  great  advantage,  not  only  to  the  said  colonies,  but  also  to  this  king- 
dom, by  furnishing  the  manufacturers  of  iron  with  a  supply  of  that 
useful  and  necessary  commodity,  and  by  means  thereof  large  sums  of 
money,  now  annually  paid  for  iron  to  foreigners,  will  be  saved  to  this 
kingdom,  and  a  greater  quantity  of  the  woolen,  and  other  manufactures 
of  Great  Britain,  will  be  exported  to  America,  in  exchange  for  such  iron 
so  imported,  be  it  therefore  enacted,"  etc.  The  ninth  and  tenth  sec- 
tions of  the  Act  read  as  follows :  "And,  that  pig  and  bar  iron  made  in 
his  Majesty's  colonies  in  America  may  be  further  manufactured  in  this 
kingdom ;  be  it  further  enacted  that  from  and  after  the  twenty-fourth 
day  of  June,  1750,  no  mill  or  other  engine  for  slitting  or  rolling  of  iron, 
or  any  plateing  forge  to  work  with  a  tilt  hammer,  or  any  furnace  for 
making  steel,  shall  be  erected,  or  after  such  erection,  continued  in  any 
part  of  his  Majesty's  colonies  in  America.  .  .  .  And  it  is  hereby 
enacted  .  .  .  that  every  such  mill,  engine,  forge,  or  furnace  so 
erected  or  continued  contrary  to  the  directions  of  this  Act,  shall  be 
deemed  a  common  nuisance,"  and  "  within  thirty  days  must  be  abated." 
23  George  II,  Ch.  29  of  the  Laws  of  1750 ;  20  Statutes  at  Large,  97  et  seq. 
See  also  2  Bancroft,  356. 


14  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

they  could  manufacture  certain  kinds  of  nails  cheaper 
than  they  could  import  them,  and  parliament  again 
interposed  with  a  prohibition  of  mills  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  spikes  and  nails. 

Yet  although  these  restrictions  bore  with  great  sever- 
ity upon  the  colonies,  there  was  for  a  long  time  no  con- 
siderable protest  against  the  economic  system  which  gave 
them  force.  Many  causes  conspired  to  this  result.  In 
the  first  place,  under  this  system  the  trade  and  manufac- 
tures of  the  mother  country  had  so  developed  as  to  make 
her  the  wealthiest  and  most  powerful  of  European  states. 
The  colonists  were  Englishmen  with  English  feelings 
and  prejudices.  For  British  prosperity  and  British 
glory  their  hearts  were  as  warm  as  any  Englishman's.* 
As  Franklin  put  it,  to  be  an  " old  England  man"  was  of 
itself  a  character  of  some  respect  and  gave  a  kind  of 
rank  among  the  colonies,  f  In  all  movements  looking 
toward  a  better  understanding  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  colonies  they  insisted  that  the  colonies  need  not 
cease  being  useful  to  the  mother  country.  They  were  so 
many  countries  gained  to  Britain.  Their  interests  were 
the  saine,J  and  for  generations,  and  even  centuries,  the 
Americans  would  continue  to  buy  what  Britain  wanted 
to  sell,  and  sell  what  Britain  wanted  to  buy. 


*  1  Political  Writings  of  John  Dickinson,  119. 

t  See  3  Franklin's  Works,  416.  Thomas  Pownall  said,  in  1764,  that 
"nothing  could  eradicate  from  the  hearts  of  the  Americans  their  natural, 
almost  mechanical  affection  to  Great  Britain,  which  they  conceive  under 
no  other  sense,  nor  call  by  any  other  name  than  that  of  home."  The  Ad- 
ministration of  the  Colonies,  by  Thomas  Pownall,  p.  25 :  London,  1764. 

$  ' '  For  one  hundred  years  to  this  time  there  has  not  been  an  American 
to  whom  in  the  genuine  feelings  of  his  heart,  the  interest,  welfare,  and 
happiness  of  Great  Britain  was  not  as  dear  as  that  of  his  own  colony, 
having  no  other  idea  but  that  they  were  always  one  and  the  same." 
Po^nall's  Considerations  on  Taxing  the  Colonies  (1766),  p.  2. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  15 

Nor  was  the  colonial  system  wholly  one-sided.  A  large 
and  profitable  trade  with  the  West  Indies  and  with  Asia 
and  Africa  was  left  untouched,  and  enjoyed  the  protec- 
tion of  the  English  naval  power.  Besides,  there  was  a 
powerful  appeal  to  British  self-interest  to  encourage  the 
colonies  in  those  trades  and  industries  which  did  not 
interfere  with  the  home  market.  Governor  Hunter  of 
New  York,  in  urging  the  Board  of  Trade,  in  1715,  to 
vigorously  set  on  foot  the  production  of  naval  stores, 
declared  that  there  was  no  other  way  to  prevent  the 
poorer  people  from  wearing  homespun.  '  Few  that  can 
afford  it  wear  homespun/  said  he,  'and  a  law  to  compel 
others  would  be  equivalent  to  a  law  to  compel  them  to 
go  naked/  *  The  Lords  Commissioners  for  Trades  and 
Plantations,  in  1721,  concluded  that  it  was  necessity  and 
not  choice  which  sent  the  colonies  to  manufacturing, 
and  if  proper  encouragement  were  given  to  naval  stores 
and  minerals,  they  could  be  diverted  from  thoughts  of 
setting  up  any  manufacturing  of  their  own.f  In  re- 
sponse to  these  and  many  similar  appeals  British  legis- 
lation constantly  favored  colonial  enterprise  of  the  kind 
just  mentioned.  Discriminations  in  favor  of  colonial 
produce  were  made  in  English  markets,  and  this  was 
supplemented  by  bounties  from  the  English  government, 
and  by  premiums  from  private  societies  for  the  importa- 
tion into  England  of  silk,  hemp  and  flax,  indigo,  naval 
stores,  timber,  and  other  articles.  And  in  the  case  of 
tobacco,  the  growers  were  given  the  exclusive  possession 
of  the  English  market.{ 

*  1  Doc.  Hist,  of  New  York,  713. 

t  5  Doc's  Relating  to  Colonial  History  of  New  York,  598,  604.  The 
same  recommendation  was  repeated  in  the  Report  of  1732;  see  3  Mac- 
pherson's  Annals  of  Commerce,  186  et  seq. 

i  7  Statutes  at  Large,  503,  (Charles  II,  Chap.  34,  Laws  of  1660).  See 
ako  23George  II,  Chap.  20 ;  24  George  II,  Chap.  51 ;  et  passim. 


16  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

But  of  far  more  moment  was  the  practical  nullity  of 
the  laws  of  trade.  The  English  government  at  first 
attempted  no  vigorous  enforcement,  and  the  feeling  re- 
garding these  regulations  rendered  evasions  easy  and 
widespread.  Thus  the  Molasses  Act  of  1733,  which  was 
a  nominal  prohibition  upon  all  lawful  trade  with  the 
foreign  West  Indies,  merely  replaced  this  with  a  clandes- 
tine trade  nearly  as  large.  The  Board  of  Trade  was 
constantly  reminded  of  this  state  of  affairs,  and  con- 
certed measures  for  securing  the  enforcement  of  the 
laws.  But  between  the  dissensions  at  home  and  the  dif- 
ficulties of  dealing  with  colonial  assemblies  and  charters, 
nothing  effective  was  undertaken  until  after  1750.  In  a 
word,  the  colonies  'manufactured  whatever  they  found  to 
be  for  their  advantage,  and  sent  ships  wherever  they 
pleased,  in  spite  of  all  navigation  acts  and  laws  of  trade.'* 

In  their  own  internal  affairs  the  colonies  followed  the 
example  of  England.f  The  royal  veto  generally  pre- 
vented any  legislation  which  would  interfere  with  Eng- 
lish interests,  but  within  the  narrower  sphere  mercantile 
principles  had  free  play.  Export  bounties  were  granted, 
to  encourage  trade,  manufactures,  and  agriculture,  on 
linen  and  woolen  cloths,  silk,  flax,  pitch,  hemp,  yards, 
and  other  articles.  Manufactures  were  promoted  by 
bills  of  credit,  exemptions  from  taxation,  bounties,  and 
premiums  from  private  organizations. J  Drawbacks  were 

*  See  6  Winsor,  9, 10. 

t  See  American  Trade  Regulations  before  1789,  printed  in  vol.  iii  of 
the  publications  of  the  American  Historical  Association. 

t  In  1682  Virginia  passed  a  law  for  the  encouragement  of  domestic 
manufactures.  In  1706  Maryland  encouraged  the  manufacture  of  linen 
and  even  of  woolen  cloth,  the  assembly  pleading  in  excuse  of  the  weavers 
that  they  were  driven  to  their  task  by  absolute  necessity.  2  Bancroft, 
18,  22.  In  1718  Massachusetts  imposed  a  duty  of  one  percent  on  English 
manufactures  and  gave  a  small  discrimination  in  favor  of  its  own  ship 


THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD.  17 

frequently  given,  though  the  opposition  of  the  South 
prevented  their  incorporation  in  the  proposed  tariffs 
under  the  Confederation.  Bounties  on  imports  were  as 
freely  resorted  to.  Virginia  at  times  remitted  the  export 
duty  on  tobacco  to  encourage  the  importation  of  salt  and 
negroes.  Rhode  Island,  in  1777,  granted  a  conditional 
bounty  on  the  importation  of  salt.  South  Carolina,  in 
1716,  granted  a  bounty  of  from  £22  to  £30  on  imported 
servants.  Maryland  and  Virginia  allowed  an  abatement 
of  from  10%  to  25  %  on  duties  paid  in  imported  gold  or 
silver.  Export  duties  were  resorted  to  for  revenue.  In 
general  they  were  low,  but  prohibitions  both  of  importa- 
tions and  exportations  were  not  unknown.  Scarcity  was 
sure  to  lead  to  such  prohibitions,  especially  with  regard 
to  grain,  flour,  meats,  salt,  and  military  stores. 

In  import  duties  there  was  great  diversity,  but  with  a 
general  tendency  to  higher  rates.  The  early  tariffs,  in 
contrast  to  those  of  England,  had  a  large  free  list,  and 
even  where  the  list  was  extended  few  articles  were  enum- 
erated. In  1661  Virginia  put  a  tariff  on  rum  on  the 
ground  of  its  injurious  effects.  Massachusetts  began 
by  taxing  beaver  skins  and  wines.  In  1703  South  Caro- 
lina levied  a  general  tariff  of  three  per  cent  on  certain 
specified  articles.  In  1698  Maryland  resorted  to  a  tariff 
to  secure  funds  for  the  erection  of  a  capitol.  During  the 
disputes  between  Virginia  and  Maryjand,  hostile  dis- 
criminations, embargoes,  and  three-fold  duties  were 
adopted  to  cut  off  inland  trade  to  the  northward.* 

building.  This  was  vetoed  by  the  king.  Jb.  239.  The  report  of  1732 
complained  that  Massachusetts  had  encouraged  the  manufacture  of 
paper  and  other  articles. 

*  In  1676  New  York  was  discriminating  against  Boston.  See  Ran- 
dolph's report  to  the  Council  of  Trade,  3  Doc's  relating  to  Colonial  Hist. 
of  New  York,  241. 


18  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  threw  off  all  re- 
straint, but  the  war  itself  was  such  a  barrier  to  commerce 
that  there  was  little  incentive  to  tariff  legislation.  The 
Continental  Congress  had  no  power  to  regulate  trade, 
and  the  cause  of  the  colonies  had,  by  this  time,  become, 
in  some  sense,  a  protest  against  the  restrictive  system  of 
England.  Before  the  final  rupture  various  attempts  were 
made  by  non-importation  agreements  and  otherwise  to 
break  off  trade  with  England  and  encourage  home  man- 
ufactures; such  encouragement  the  war  more  effectually 
provided.  On  the  return  of  peace  the  new  republic 
sought  reciprocity  with  all  nations,  and  the  failure  to 
secure  this,  added  to  the  commercial  complications  at 
home,  brought  the  newly  united  states  to  the  verge  of 
dissolution. 

The  desperate  financial  straits  of  the  Confederation, 
and  the  impossibility  of  raising  money  by  requisitions 
on  the  states,  first  turned  the  attention  of  the  country  to 
the  question  of  intrusting  Congress  with  the  power  of 
regulating  trade.*  New  Jersey,  in  1778,  soon  after  the 
Articles  of  Confederation  were  approved  by  Congress, 
laid  before  that  body  a  proposition  that,  inasmuch  as 
state  control  would  lead  to  unavoidable  confusion,  Con- 
gress alone  should  have  the  power  to  regulate  commerce 
and  dispose  of  the  resulting  duties.  In  1780  Hamilton, 
in  a  letter  to  James  Duane,  maintained  that  Congress 

*  Very  slowly  and  reluctantly  the  prejudice  against  this  step  was 
overcome.  The  whole  struggle  of  the  century  had  been  to  secure  the 
sole  right  of  taxation  to  the  local  assemblies,  and  so  little  national  feel- 
ing was  there  that  the  intrusting  of  any  part  of  this  power  to  Congress 
eeemed  like  surrendering  the  chief  result  of  the  long  struggle.  The 
clause  in  Franklin's  plan  of  1754,  giving  the  general  Congress  power  to 
collect  a  revenue,  insured  its  rejection  by  every  colony.  See  letter  of 
Governor  Shirley  to  Secretary  Robinson,  Dec.  24,  1754,  criticising  the 
Albany  plan ;  6  Doc's  relating  to  Colonial  Hist.  New  York,  930. 


THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD.  19 

should  have  the  power  of  regulating  trade,  determining 
with  what  countries  it  should  be  carried  on.  The  same 
idea  found  expression  in  the  address  of  the  Hartford 
Convention  of  1780.  In  December  of  that  year  Penn- 
sylvania instructed  its  delegates  in  Congress  that  im- 
posts on  trade  were  absolutely  necessary,  and  in  order  to 
prevent  one  state  taking  advantage  of  another,  Congress 
should  recommend  to  the  several  states  a  system  of 
imposts.*  In  1781  Congress  itself  asked  for  authority 
to  levy  an  impost  duty  of  five  per  cent,  the  revenue  to  be 
applied  only  to  war  expenses,  and  to  continue  until  the 
debts  were  paid.  One  by  one  the  states  replied  until  all 
had  consented,  with  more  or  less  reservations,  except 
Georgia  and  Rhode  Island.  Congress  again  called  upon 
these  states  to  act.  Bat  Georgia  made  no  response,  and 
Rhode  Island  refused  outright,  alleging  that  such  a  duty 
would  bear  most  heavily  upon  commercial  states  like 
herself,  objecting  to  collectors  appointed  by  Congress, 
and  insisting  that  it  was  far  too  much  power  to  intrust 
to  Congress.f 

In  1783  Congress  returned  to  the  same  plan,  and  a 
bill  was  drawn  up  calculated  to  meet  the  objections  to 
the  former  measure.  The  concurrent  right  of  taxation 
was  still  retained  by  the  states,  and  the  grant  of  power 
to  Congress  was  limited  to  twenty-five  years.  Collectors 
of  revenue  were  to  be  chosen  by  the  states,  and  the 
grant  was  to  take  effect  only  when  all  the  states  had 
given  their  consent.  This  bill,  approved  by  the  almost 
unanimous  vote  of  Congress,  was  sent  out  to  the  states 
accompanied  by  a  solemn  appeal,  drawn  from  the  des- 
perate condition  of  the  finances,  written  by  Madison, 

*  6  Bancroft,  14. 
t  6  Bancroft,  33. 


20  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

and  an  elaborate  answer  to  Rhode  Island's  former  objec- 
tions, written  by  Hamilton.  After  many  delays  and  a 
second  appeal  from  Congress,  conditional  acceptances 
were  received  from  all  the  states  except  New  York.  In 
this  refusal  New  York  persisted,  reiterating  her  position 
so  late  as  February,  1787.  In  1784  Congress  called  upon 
the  states  for  a  grant  of  power  to  regulate  commerce  for 
fifteen  years,  by  prohibitions  and  discriminations  against 
unfriendly  powers.  But  the  response  to  this  request  was 
even  less  favorable  than  to  the  other.* 

Meanwhile  the  states,  with  different  tariff  and  tonnage 
acts,  began  to  make  commercial  war  upon  each  other. 
When  three  New  England  states  virtually  closed  their 
ports  to  British  shipping,  Connecticut  threw  hers  wide 
open,  and  then  laid  duties  upon  imports  from  Massachu- 
setts. Massachusetts  retaliated  by  imposing  heavier 
duties  on  imports  from  Connecticut  than  from  Great 
Britain,  f  Pennsylvania  discriminated  against  Delaware. 
New  Jersey  paid  tribute  to  both  her  neighbors.  New 
York  exacted  the  same  entrance  fees  and  custom-house 
regulations  from  the  sloops  of  Connecticut  and  New 
Jersey  as  from  foreign  vessels,  and  these  states  promptly 
retaliated.  Articles  which  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey 
excluded  by  heavy  tonnage  duties,  entered  New  York 
virtually  free.  What  Massachusetts  encouraged,  Virginia 
restricted.  Virginia  even  proposed  to  impose  enormous 
duties  without  regard  to  the  action  of  the  other  states.  J 
New  York  was  indifferent  to  the  trade  in  indigo  and 
pitch,  South  Carolina  to  that  in  furs.  New  England's 

*  See  John  Fiske's  Critical  Period  of  American  History,  144.  For  the 
animus  of  the  opposition  to  these  grants,  see  Van  Buren's  Political 
Parties  in  the  United  States. 

f  See  1  Madison's  Works,  216. 

\  See  1  Madison's  Works,  271. 


THE  COLONIAL   PERIOD.  21 

revenues  came  from  lumber,  oil,  and  potash  ;  Pennsyl- 
vania's from  corn  and  grain  ;  and  neither  was  concerned 
as  to  the  interests  of  the  other.*  Pending  the  action  of 
the  states  on  the  five  per  cent  impost,  Madison  wrote  : 
"  In  this  suspense,  the  more  suffering  states  are  seeking 
relief  from  political  efforts  which  are  less  likely  to  obtain 
it  than  to  drive  their  trade  into  other  channels  and  to 
kindle  heart-burnings  on  all  sides."  f  And  six  months 
later:  "  The  states  are  every  day  giving  proof  that  sep- 
arate regulations  are  mbre  likely  to  set  them  by  the  ears 
than  to  attain  the  common  object."  J 

Inevitably  the  states  drifted  out  towards  anarchy  and 
disunion,  their  credit  daily  sinking,  and  internal  dissen- 
sions becoming  more  and  more  serious.  The  need  of  a 
stronger  government  and  of  a  uniform  revenue  system 
came  to  be  generally  recognized,  but  the  helplessness  of 
the  legislature  prevented  the  adoption  of  any  adequate 
measure.  The  Convention  of  1787  gave  the  new  govern- 
ment full  powers  in  this  respect,  and  prepared  the  way 
for  a  comprehensive  tariff  act. 

Yet  this  movement  toward  restrictive  legislation,  nec- 
essary as  it  was,  indicated  a  decided  reaction  from  the 
position  which  had  been  reached ;  and  to  understand  its 
significance  it  will  be  necessary  to  glance  at  the  course 
of  economic  thought. 

While  colonial  legislation  reproduced  much  that  was 
characteristic  of  the  mercantile  system,  the  logic  of  events 
had,  in  fact,  emancipated  American  thought  from  the 
fetters  of  mercantilism  much  faster  than  either  the  col- 
onies or  England  were  aware.  The  voices  of  the  new 

*  See  John  Fiske's  Critical  Period  of  American  History,  144-147  •  and 
1  McMaster,  206. 

t  Madison  to  Jefferson,  Aug.  20, 1785 ;  1  Madison's  Works,  197. 
$  Madison  to  Jefferson,  March  18,  1786 ;  1  Madison's  Works,  225. 


22  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

economic  speculations  were  first  heard  in  England,  but 
the  response  was  much  readier  in  the  colonies.  Even 
while  submitting  to  the  part  which  mercantilism  assigned 
them  in  building  up  the  power  of  England,  the  colonies 
were  not  forced  to  believe  that  her  infallibility  extended 
to  all  details.  They  claimed  all  the  rights  of  English 
subjects,  resented  the  petty  annoyances  with  which  the 
mother  country  sought  to  fetter  their  trade,  and  reached 
out  after  that  larger  liberty  and  more  generous  treat- 
ment which,  they  stoutly  insisted,  was  not  inconsistent 
with  the  prosperity  of  England.  In  all  measures  which 
they  asked  for  they  labored  to  make  plain  that  they  were 
not  running  counter  to  the  interests  of  England.  Yet 
they  had  other  ideas  of  destiny  than  the  narrow  exis- 
tence Great  Britain  proposed  for  them,  and  when  Brit- 
ish folly  went  so  far  as  to  force  the  fundamental  issue  of 
taxation  without  representation,  the  bond  which  con- 
nected them,  to  the  mother  country  was  rudely  snapped 
asunder.* 

*  The  self-interest  which  impelled  the  colonies  to  revolt  from  the 
commercial  fetters  of  England  was  powerfully  reinforced  by  the  writings 
of  Petty,  North,  Locke,  Dean  Tucker,  and  Hume,  in  England,  and  of 
the  economists  in  France,  Quesnay,  Turgot,  and  others, — the  latter,  es- 
pecially, bulwarked  in  a  social  philosophy  which  took  deep  root  in 
American  soil.  A  hundred  years  before  Adam  Smith,  Sir  Wm.  Petty 
showed  that  value  originates  in  labor,  and  pointed  out  some  of  the 
advantages  of  a  division  of  labor.  He  anticipated  Ricardo's  iron  law  of 
wages,  and  strongly  opposed  governmental  interference  with  industry. 
North  maintained  that  as  to  trade  the  whole  world  were  as  one  nation, 
and  no  trade  was  unprofitable  to  the  public — if  it  were,  it  would  be  given 
up ;  and  that  no  people  could  become  rich  by  state  regulations. 

All  this  was  mostly  negative,  but  it  set  the  current  of  economic  think- 
ing in  a  direction  opposite  to  mercantilism.  Then  came  the  physiocrats 
with  their  positive  ideas  and  system — the  jus  naturse — which  called  for 
the  abolition  of  all  prohibitions  on  exports  and  imports,  in  the  interest 
of  agriculture.  Then  followed  Dean  Tucker  and  Hume  in  England,  and 
finally,  in  the  same  year  that  Independence  was  declared,  appeared 
Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  23 

No  one  did  more  to  establish  the  idea  of  a  natural 
relation  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country 
than  Franklin.*  In  a  pamphlet  written  in  1751,  and 
reprinted  in  England,  he  pointed  out  that  notwithstand- 
ing the  rapid  increase  of  population  in  America,  so  vast 
was  the  territory  that  it  would  require  many  ages  to 
settle  it  fully.  Labor  never  would  be  cheap,  where  no 
man  continued  long  a  laborer  for  others,  but  got  a  plan- 
tation of  his  own.  Labor,  he  declared,  was  no  cheaper 
in  Pennsylvania  than  it  had  been  thirty  years  before, 
though  many  thousand  laboring  men  had  been  imported. 
The  danger,  therefore,  of  the  colonies  interfering  with 
the  mother  country  in  trades  that  depended  on  labor 
was  too  remote  to  require  the  attention  of  Great  Britain. 
"  But  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  colonies,  a 
vast  demand  is  growing  for  British  manufactures,  a  glor-/ 
ious  market  wholly  in  the  power  of  Britain,  in  which! 

*  The  idea  of  the  natural  dependence  of  the  colonies  on  the  mother 
country  was,  of  course,  fundamental  (cf.  supra,  p.  8),  and  at  the  basis, 
even,  of  the  navigation  acts  and  laws  of  trade.  But  the  fear  that  their 
increasing  numbers  and  wealth,  joined  to  their  great  distance  from 
Great  Britain,  would  lead  them  to  throw  off  their  dependence,  found 
constant  expression.  Some  of  the  acts  of  the  earlier  assemblies  were, 
indeed,  tantamount  to  a  renunciation  of  allegiance.  But  wiser  men, 
while  yielding  none  of  the  rights  they  believed  themselves  entitled  to 
as  British  subjects,  sought,  with  infinite  tact  and  patience,  to  secure 
these  liberties  in  the  broad  line  of  constitutional  development.  And 
preliminary  to  all  it  was  necessary  to  show  that  the  colonies  had  no 
inducements  to  set  up  for  themselves.  Jeremiah  Dummer,  in  his  de- 
fense of  the  colonial  charters  in  1721,  declared  that  it  was  "not  more 
absurd  to  place  two  of  his  Majesty's  beef-eaters  to  watch  an  infant  in 
the  cradle  that  it  don't  rise  to  cut  it's  father's  throat,  than  to  guard 
these  weak  infant  colonies  to  prevent  their  shaking  off  the  British  yoke." 
The  most  constant  argument  was  the  one  drawn  from  the  dearness 
and  scarcity  of  labor.  See,  for  instances,  Doc.  Hist,  of  New  York, 
vol.  i,  pp.  714  et  seq. ;  Doc's  relating  to  Colonial  Hist,  of  New  York, 
vol.  viii,  p.  66,  et  passim. 


24  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY1. 

foreigners  cannot  interfere,  which  will  increase  in  a 
short  time  even  beyond  her  power  of  supplying,  though 
her  whole  trade  should  be  to  her  colonies."  *  "  They 
who  understand  the  economy  and  principles  of  manu- 
factures," he  asserted  in  another  pamphlet  written  in 
England,  in  1760,  "  know  that  it  is  impossible  to  estab- 
lish them  in  places  not  populous;  and  even  in  those  that 
are  populous,  hardly  possible  to  establish  them  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  places  already  in  possession  of  them. 
.  .  .  A  manufacturer  is  part  of  a  great  system  of 
commerce  which  takes  in  conveniences  of  various  kinds; 
methods  of  promoting  materials  of  all  sorts,  machines 
for  expediting  and  facilitating  labor,  all  the  channels  of 
correspondence  for  vending  the  wares,  the  credit  and  con- 
fidence necessary  to  found  and  support  this  correspond- 
ence, the  mutual  aid  of  different  artisans,  arid  a  thousand 
other  particulars  which  time  and  long  experience  have 
gradually  established."  f 

The  occasion  of  the  pamphlet  just  cited  was  the  ques- 
tion before  the  British  Cabinet  as  to  whether  Canada  or 
Guadaloupe  should  be  given  back  to  the  French.  It  was 
urged  that  Canada  should  be  sacrificed,  among  other 
reasons,  because  its  possession  by  the  French  would  tend 
to  keep  the  colonies  in  check.  Franklin  was  alarmed  at 
the  idea  of  parting  with  Canada  and  strongly  urged  the 
commercial  necessity  of  retaining  it.  Speaking  now  as 
an  Englishman,  he  argued  that  the  blood  and  treasure 
spent  in  American  wars,  was  not  spent  in  the  cause  of 
the  colonies  alone;  nor  did  he  omit  to  hold  up  the  alter- 

*  Observations  concerning  the  Increase  of  Mankind,  etc. ;  2  Franklin's 
Works,  223  et  seg. 

t  The  Interest  of  Great  Britain  Considered,  etc. ;  3  Franklin's  Works, 
100.  Cf.  John  Dickinson,  infra,  p.  40. 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  25 

native  of  colonial  manufactures.  "A  people  spread 
through  the  whole  tract  of  country  on  this  side  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  secured  by  Canada  in  our  hands,  would 
probably  for  some  centuries  find  employment  in  agricul- 
ture, and  thereby  free  us  at  home  effectually  from  our 
fears  of  American  manufactures.  Unprejudiced  men 
well  know  that  all  the  penal  and  prohibitory  laws  that 
were  ever  thought  on  will  not  be  sufficient  to  prevent 
manufactures  in  a  country  whose  inhabitants  surpass  the 
number  that  can  subsist  by  the  husbandry  of  it.  That 
this  will  be  the  case  in  America  soon,  if  our  people 
remain  confined  within  the  mountains,  and  almost  as 
soon  should  it  be  unsafe  for  them  to  live  beyond,  though 
the  country  be  ceded  to  us,  no  man  acquainted  with 
political  and  commercial  history  can  doubt.  Manufac- 
tures are  founded  in  poverty.  It  is  the  multitude  of 
poor  without  law  in  a  country  and  who  must  work  for 
others  at  low  wages  or  starve,  that  enables  undertakers 
to  carry  on  a  manufacture  and  afford  it  cheap  enough  to 
prevent  the  importation  of  the  same  kind  from  abroad, 
and  to  bear  the  expense  of  exportation.  But  no  man 
who  can  have  a  piece  of  land  of  his  own  sufficient  by  his 
labor  to  subsist  his  family  in  plenty,  is  poor  enough  to 
be  a  manufacturer  and  work  for  a  master.  Hence  while 
there  is  land  enough  in  America  for  our  own  people, 
there  can  never  be  manufactures  to  any  amount  or 
value."*  It  was  not  necessary,  he  insisted,  that  the 
American  colonies  should  cease  being  useful  to  thei 
mother  country.  It  had  been  urged  that  finding  no 
check  from  Canada,  the  Americans  would  extend  them- 
selves almost  without  bounds  into  the  inland  parts  and 
increase  infinitely  from  all  causes.  But  that  would  take 

*  3  Franklin's  Works,  86.     See  also  ib.  v,  1  et  seq. 


26  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

some  centuries,  and  "  in  the  meantime  this  nation  must 
necessarily  supply  them  with  the  manufactures  they 
consume  ;  because  the  new  settlers  will  be  employed  in 
agriculture;  and  the  new  settlements  will  so  contin- 
ually draw  off  spare  hands  from  the  old  that  our  present 
colonies  will  not  find  themselves  in  a  condition  to  man- 
ufacture even  for  their  own  inhabitants.  Thus  our  trade 
must,  till  that  country  becomes  as  fully  peopled  as 
England  (that  is,  for  centuries  to  come)  be  continually 
increasing,  and  with  it  our  naval  power."  *  The  exports 
to  Pennsylvania,  he  said,  had  increased  in  twenty-eight 
years  in  the  proportion  of  17  to  1,  while  the  population 
had  increased  only  4  to  1.  "In  fact,  the  occasion  for 
English  goods  in  North  America,  and  the  inclination  to 

*  3  Franklin's  Works,  93.  Cf.  Views  of  Jefferson,  Ellsworth,  Adams, 
Washington,  and  Hamilton — infra,  pp.  38  et  seq. 

How  these  manufactures  were  to  be  paid  for,  Franklin  explained  by 
saying  it  was  well-known  that  the  inland  parts  of  America  were  fitted 
for  the  production  of  hemp,  flax,  potash,  and  silk;  the  southern  parts, 
olive  oil,  raisins,  currants,  indigo,  and  cochineal,  as  well  as  horses  and 
cattle. 

In  his  examination  before  the  House  of  Commons  in  1766,  he  ex- 
plained how  the  balance  of  trade  was  adjusted.  Pennsylvania,  he  said, 
imported  from  England  £500,000  a  year,  and  exported  to  England 
£40,000.  The  balance  was  paid  by  produce  carried  to  the  West  Indies 
and  sold  to  the  English,  French,  Spaniards,  Danes,  and  Dutch  ;  by  the 
same  produce  carried  to  other  colonies  in  North  America,  as  to  New 
England,  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  Carolina,  and  Georgia;  by  the 
same  carried  to  different  parts  of  Europe,  as  Spain,  Portugal,  and  Italy. 
In  all  these  places  they  received  either  money,  bills  of  exchange,  or 
commodities,  suitable  for  remittance  to  Britain;  which  together  with 
all  the  profits  on  the  industry  of  merchants  and  mariners  arising  in 
those  circuitous  voyages,  and  the  freights  made  by  their  ships,  centered 
finally  in  Britain  to  discharge  the  balance  and  pay  for  British  manufac- 
tures continually  used  in  the  provinces  or  sold  to  foreigners  by  traders. 
(3  Franklin's  Works,  417.)  Franklin  was  here  arguing  that  the  Amer- 
icans would  be  utterly  unable  to  pay  the  Stamp  duty,  and  it  may  be 
presumed  that  he  made  the  case  as  strong  as  possible. 


THE    COLONIAL  PERIOD.  27 

have  and  use  them,  is,  and  must  be  for  ages  to  come, 
much  greater  than  the  ability  of  the  people  to  pay  for 
them."  * 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  Franklin 
adopted  the  English  view  with  regard  to  colonial  man- 
ufactures. He  had  a  sincere  preference  for  agricultural 
pursuits,  and  shared  the  common  opinion  that  for  a  long 
time  manufactures  must  be  very  slight.  But  the  neces- 
sity for  allaying  the  fears  of  English  interests  naturally 
led  him  to  emphasize  unduly  the  dependence  of  the  col- 
onies on.  the  manufactures  of  England,  as  well  as  their 
supreme  devotion  to  agriculture.  The  economic  basis 
of  England's  policy  he  came  more  and  more  to  question, 
and  keeping  well  abreast  of  current  criticism  of  mercan- 
tilism he  lost  no  opportunity  of  cautiously  enforcing  a 
more  generous  policy. 

As  far  back  as  1729,  in  arguing  for  paper  money, 
Franklin  appealed  to  those  who  wished  to  see  manufac- 
tures encouraged. f    In  1747  Connecticut  proposed  a  tariff 
of  five  per  cent  on  imports.    In  answer  to  an  inquiry  as  to   v 
the  advisability  of  this  duty,  Franklin  said    that    un- 
doubtedly, on  the  whole,  the  duty  would  be  paid  by  the  ( 
consumer  ;  so  that  it  would  be  another  mode  of  taxing  \ 
their  own  people,  though  perhaps  meant  to  raise  money 
on  their  neighbors.     Yet  if  they  could  make  some  of  the 
goods  heretofore  imported,    the  advanced   price   mightf 
encourage  their  own  manufacture  and  in  time  make  im- 
portations unnecessary,  which  would  be  an  advantage. 
But  he  reminded  them  that  their  tariff  might  not  only/ 
encourage  smuggling,  but  also  offend  their  neighbors,! 
who  by  heavy  counter  duties  might  leave  Connecticut's' 

*  3  Franklin's  Works,  109.    See  also  ib.  417. 
t  See  1  Franklin'B  Works,  359  et  seq. 


28  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

own  exports  a  drug  in  the  market.*  Even  when  speak- 
ing most  extravagantly  of  colonial  dependence,  he 
shrewdly  inserted  arguments  tending  to  a  less  severe 
repression  of  colonial  manufactures.  In  a  pamphlet 
already  cited, f  after  referring  to  the  vast  and  growing 
demand  for  British  manufactures  in  the  colonies — "  a 
glorious  market  wholly  in  the  power  of  Britain  " —  he 
added:  "therefore,  Britain  should  not  too  much  restrain 
manufactures  in  the  colonies.  To  distress  is  to  weaken, 
and  weakening  the  children  weakens  the  whole  family." 
Again,  in  the  Canada-Guadaloupe  pamphlet,  after  insist- 
ing that  for  ages  to  come  the  colonies  would  want  more 
English  manufactures  than  they  could  pay  for,  he  con- 
tinued: "  And  thus,  if  at  any  time  they  should  manufac- 
ture some  coarse  article,  which  on  account  of  its  bulk  or 
other  circumstance  cannot  so  well  be  brought  to  them 
from  Britain,  it  only  enables  them  the  better  to  pay  for 
finer  goods  that  otherwise  they  could  not  indulge  them- 
selves in."  J 

Regarding  the  proposed  representation  of  the  colonies 
in  the  British  parliament,  he  declared  that  such  a  course 
would  be  very  acceptable  to  the  colonies,  provided  they 
had  a  reasonable  number  of  representatives  allowed 
them;  and  that  all  the  old  acts  of  parliament  restraining 
the  trade  or  cramping  the  manufactures  of  the  colonies 
be  at  the  same  time  repealed,  and  the  British  subjects  on 
this  side  of  the  water  put,  in  those  respects,  on  the  same 
footing  with  those  in  Great  Britain,  till  the  new  par- 
liament representing  the  whole,  shall  think  it  for 
the  interest  of  the  whole  to  re-enact  some  or  all 


*  Franklin  to  Jared  Eliot,  July  16, 1747 ;    2  Franklin's  Works,  78,  79, 

t  Supra,  p.  23. 

J  3  Franklin's  Works,  110. 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  29 

of  them.  .  .  .  "I  should  hope,  too,  that  by  such 
a  union  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  the  people  of 
the  colonies  would  learn  to  consider  themselves  as  not 
belonging  to  different  interests,  but  to  one  community,/ 
with  one  interest;  which,  I  imagine,  would  contribute  to! 
strengthen  the  whole  and  greatly  lessen  the  danger  of 
future  separation.  ...  I  look  on  the  colonies  as  so 
many  countries  gained  to  Great  Britain  and  more  advan- 
tageous to  it  than  if  they  had  been  gained  out  of  the 
seas  around  the  coasts  and  joined  to  its  lands;  for  being 
in  different  climates,  they  afford  greater  variety  of  prod- 
uce and  materials  for  more  manufactures,  and  being 
separated  by  the  ocean  they  increase  much  more  its 
shipping  and  seamen.  .  .  .  And  if  through  increase 
of  people  two  smiths  are  wanted  for  one  employed  before, 
why  may  not  the  new  smith  be  allowed  to  live  and  thrive 
in  the  new  country."  *  Six  years  later  he  wrote  to  Hume: 
"  I  have  lately  read  with  great  pleasure,  as  I  do  every- 
thing of  yours,  the  excellent  essay  on  the  Jealousy  of 
Commerce.  .  .  .  But  I  hope  particularly  from  that 
essay  an  abatement  of  the  jealousy  that  reigns  here  [i.  e. 
in  England]  of  the  commerce  of  the  colonies."  f 

But  what  Franklin  regarded  as  the  normal  course  of 
development  for  the  colonies,  he  by  no  means  believed 
to  be  the  only  course  open  to  them;  and  in  his  examina- 
tion before  the  House  of  Commons  in  1766,  pending  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  his  attitude  was  one  of  defiance. 
He  defined  the  difference  between  external  and  internal 
taxes  by  saying  that  an  external  tax  was  a  duty  levied 

*  Franklin  to  Governor  Shirley,  Dec.  22, 1754;  2  Franklin's  Works, 
384  et  seq.  Franklin's  more  mature  ideas  on  the  proper  relations  of 
trade  are  given  in  a  letter  to  Pownall  in  1768;  see  infra,  p.  33. 

t  Franklin  to  Hume,  Sept.  27,  1760 ;    3  Franklin's  Works,  127. 


30  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

on  commodities  imported  and  added  to  the  cost;  people 
could  buy  or  not  as  they  chose.  But  the  Stamp  Act 
proposed  to  force  the  people  to  pay  whether  they  wished 
or  not.  When  asked  whether  external  taxes  levied  on 
necessaries  of  life  would  not  be  the  same  as  an  internal 
tax,  he  replied  that  he  did  not  know  a  single  article 
imported  into  the  northern  colonies,  that  they  could  not 
either  do  without  or  make  themselves.  Even  English 
\  cloth  was  not  absolutely  necessary,  for  with  industry  and 
good  management  they  might  very  well  supply  them- 
selves with  all  they  wanted.  He  was  asked  if  it  would 
not  take  a  long  time  to  establish  the  woolen  manufac- 
ture, the  Americans  meanwhile  suffering  greatly.  He 
thought  not.  They  had  made  surprising  progress  al- 
ready, and  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  before  their  old 
/  clothes  were  worn  out  they  would  have  new  ones  of  their 
•  own  making.  "Can  they  possibly  find  wool  enough  in 
North  America  ?  "  "  They  have  taken  steps  to  increase 
wool,"  he  replied.  "  They  entered  into  general  combin- 
ations not  to  eat  any  more  lamb;  and  very  few  lambs 
were  killed  last  year.  This  will  soon  make  a  prodigious 
difference;  and  the  establishment  of  great  manufactories 
like  those  in  England  are  not  necessary  because  the 
people  will  all  spin  and  work  for  themselves."  "  But  is 
it  their  interest  to  make  cloth  at  home  ?  "  "  They  may 
at  present  get  it  cheaper  from  the  British,"  was  the 
reply,  "  but  when  one  considers  other  circumstances,  the 
restraints  on  their  trade  and  the  difficulty  of  making 
remittances,  it  is  their  interest  to  make  everything." 
"  Supposing  the  Stamp  Act  continued  and  enforced,  do 
you  imagine  that  ill-humor  will  induce  the  Americans 
to  give  as  much  for  worse  manufactures  of  their  own, 
and  use  them,  preferable  to  better  of  ours  ?"  "  Yes,  I 


THE    COLONIAL    PERIOD.  31 

think  so,"  Franklin  answered.  "  People  will  pay  as 
freely  to  gratify  one  passion  as  another,  their  resentment 
as  their  pride."  * 

In  this  examination  Franklin  asserted  that  the  respect 
for  parliament  was  greatly  lessened  among  the  colonies, 
but  if  the  Stamp  Act  were  repealed  he  thought  their  at- 
tempts to  force  manufactures  would  be  given  up.  In 
1767,  after  the  repeal,  the  people  of  Boston,  still  smarting 
under  the  injustice  of  England's  policy,  passed  resolu- 
tions recommending  that  all  prudent  and  legal  measures 
be  taken  to  encourage  the  produce  and  manufactures  of 
the  province,  to  lessen  the  use  of  superfluities,  and  to 
refrain  from  purchasing  a  great  number  of  imported 
articles,  f  These  resolutions  created  no  little  commotion 
in  England.  The  newspapers  were  in  full  cry  against 
America,  Franklin  wrote.  "  Colonel  Onslow  told  me  in 
court  last  Sunday,"  he  continued,  "  I  could  not  conceive 
how  much  the  friends  of  America  were  run  upon  and 
hurt  by  them,  and  how  much  the  Grenvillians  triumphed. 
I  have  just  written  a  paper  for  Tuesday's  Chronicle  to 
extenuate  matters  a  little.  ...  If  our  people  [i.  e. 
Pennsylvania]  should  follow  the  Boston  example  of 
entering  into  resolutions  for  frugality  and  industry,  full 
as  necessary  for  us  as  for  them,  I  hope  they  will,  among 
other  things,  give  this  reason,  that  it  is  to  enable  them,/ 
the  more  speedily  and  effectually  to  discharge  their  debts 
to  Great  Britain.  This  will  soften  a  little,  and  at  the 
same  time  appear  honorable  and  like  ourselves."  J 

This  was  very  adroitly  turning  the  edge  of  the  weapon, 
but  Franklin  soon  found  an  even  better  means  of  inolli- 


*  3  Franklin's  Works,  422  el  seq. 
t  See  4  Franklin's  Works,  59  et  seq. 
t  4  Franklin's  Works,  59-61. 


32  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

fying  the  outraged  Englishman.  Happening  to  hear 
Grenville  complain  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  some 
of  the  colonial  governors  had  not  reported,  as  they  had 
been  directed,  regarding  the  manufactures  of  their  re- 
spective colonies,  it  occurred  to  him  to  look  at  those 
which  had  been  sent  in.  They  were  all  to  one  effect — 
that  there  were  no  manufactures  of  any  consequence  in 
the  colonies, — and  Franklin  lost  no  time  in  making  the 
public  acquainted  with  their  contents.  "  These  accounts 
are  very  satisfactory  here,"  he  wrote,  "  and  induce  par- 
liament to  despise  and  take  no  notice  of  the  Boston 
resolutions."  * 

In    these    representations   Franklin    reflected    fairly 

*4  Franklin's  Works,  132,  133.  In  his  Chronicle  letter,  Franklin 
insisted  that  the  Americans  complained  justly  of  the  action  of  the  nail- 
makers  and  hatters  of  England  in  getting  a  prohibition  of  slitting  mills 
and  hat  manufacture  in  the  colonies.  But  a  remonstrance  against  the 
English  trade  regulations,  which  he  quoted  from  an  American  news- 
paper, he  apologized  for  as  "  the  wild  ravings  of  the  at  present  half- 
distracted  Americans."  The  clipping,  which  at  that  time  seemed  to 
Franklin  worthy  of  such  epithets,  is  in  part  as  follows : 

"Our  people  have  been  foolishly  fond  of  their  [English]  superfluous 
modes  and  manufactures  to  the  impoverishing  of  our  own  country, 
carrying  off  all  our  cash,  and  loading  us  with  debt;  they  will  not  suffer 
us  to  restrain  the  luxury  of  our  inhabitants,  as  they  do  that  of  their 
own,  by  laws ;  they  can  make  laws  to  discourage  or  prohibit  the  impor- 
tation of  French  superfluities ;  but  though  those  of  England  are  as  ruin- 
ous to  us  as  the  French  ones  to  them,  if  we  make  a  law  of  that  kind, 
they  immediately  repeal  it.  Thus  they  get  all  our  money  from  us  by 
trade ;  and  every  profit  we  can  anywhere  make  by  our  fisheries,  our 
produce,  or  our  commerce,  centers  finally  with  them ;  but  this  does  not 
signify.  It  is  time,  then,  to  take  care  of  ourselves  by  the  best  means 
in  our  power.  Let  us  unite  in  solemn  resolution  and  engagements 
with  and  to  each  other,  that  we  will  give  these  new  officers  as  little 
trouble  as  possible,  by  not  consuming  the  British  manufactures  on 
which  they  are  to  levy  duties.  Let  us  agree  to  consume  no  more  of 
their  expensive  gewgaws.  Let  us  live  frugally,  and  let  us  mdustricuely 
manufacture  what  we  can  for  ourselves."  76.,  109. 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  33 

enough  the  temper  of  the  coolest  headed  Americans,  a 
temper,  indeed,  which  he  was  doing  much  to  form  and 
direct.  Loyalty  to  England  —  to  larger  England,  —  but 
resentment  of  injustice;  submission  to  the  general  colon- 
ial policy  as  loyal  subjects  of  the  realm;  a  willing  prefer- 
ence for  agriculture,  but  the  insistence  on  certain 
necessary  exceptions  to  the  general  rule;  an  opposition 
to  oppression,  firm  and  uncompromising  where  colonial 
action  was  possible,  but  wary  and  cautious  in  all  con- 
flicts with  the  British  ministry — such  was,  in  general,  at 
the  time,  the  dominant  feeling  of  the  colonies.  All  this 
involved  little  economic  thinking,  though  it  did  imply 
a  practical  denial  of  some  of  the  cherished  principles  of 
mercantilism.  But  the  more  eager  minds  in  America, 
and  Franklin's  among  the  first,  were  coming  in  contact 
with  ideas  which  were  wholly  revolutionizing  their 
theories  of  trade  and  commerce,  and  undermining  their 
abstract  justification  of  the  policy  which  all  Europe  was 
pursuing.  Almost  insensibly,  but  firmly,  the  new  ground 
was  taken  until  as  the  struggle  went  on  in  the  conflict 
of  arms  the  smaller  question  seemed  swallowed  up  in  the 
larger  one  of  the  vindication  of  the  principles  of  free 
commerce. 

We    have  already  noted    the  cordiality   with    which 
Franklin  greeted  Hume's  essay  on  Commerce,  in  which  it 
was  maintained  that  the  prosperity  of  one  nation,  instead 
of  being  a  hindrance,  was  a  help  to  that  of  its  neighbors, 
and  which  condemned  the  "  numberless  bars,  obstruc- 
tions, and   imposts  which   all  nations   of  Europe,  and 
none  more  than  England  have  put  upon  trade."     "  If 
the  colonies  are  fitter  for  a  particular  trade  than  Brit-| 
ain,"  Franklin  wrote  Pownall,  "they  should  have  it,  and! 
Britain  apply  to  what  it  is  more  fit    for.     The  whole 


34  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

empire  is  a  gainer.  And  if  Britain  is  not  so  fit  or  so 
well  situated  for  a  particular  advantage,  other  countries 
will  get  it,  if  the  colonies  do  not.  Thus  Ireland  was 
forbid  the  woolen  manufacture  and  remains  poor;  but 
this  has  given  to  the  French  the  trade  and  wealth  Ire- 
land might  have  gained  for  the  British  Empire.  .  .  . 
Advantageous  situations  and  circumstances  will  always 
secure  and  fix  manufactures."  * 

Franklin's  contact  with  the  physiocrats  colored  his 
,  economic  thinking  to  the  end  of  his  life.f  Their  exalta- 
tion of  agriculture  accorded  with  his  own  tastes,  and 
confirmed  him  in  his  distrust  of  manufactures,  except  in 
a  narrow  and  very  subordinate  way.  J  To  Joshua  Bab- 
cock  he  wrote,  in  1772,  of  a  tour  he  had  made  through 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  of  the  sad  contrast  between 


*  4  Franklin's  Works,  64. 

t  From  London  he  wrote  to  Dtipont  de  Nemours,  July,  1768,  acknowl- 
edging the  receipt  "  of  your  Physincratie,  which  I  have  read  with  great 
pleasure.  .  .  .  Am  perfectly  charmed  with  the  principles  of  your 
new  philosophy,  and  wish  I  could  have  stayed  in  France  for  some  time 
to  have  studied  in  your  school  that  I  might  by  conversing  with  its 
founders  have  made  myself  quite  a  master  of  that  philosophy.  .  .  . 
I  am  sorry  to  find  that  that  wisdom  which  sees  the  welfare  of  the  parts 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  whole  seems  yet  not  to  be  known  in  this  coun- 
try. We  are  so  far  from  conceiving  that  what  is  best  for  mankind,  or 
even  for  Europe  in  general,  may  be  best  for  us,  that  we  are  even  study- 
ing to  establish  and  extend  a  separate  interest  of  Britain,  to  the  preju- 
dice of  even  Ireland  and  our  own  colonies.  .  .  .  It  is  from  your 
philosophy  only  that  the  maxims  of  a  contrary  and  more  happy  conduct 
are  to  be  drawn,  which  I  therefore  sincerely  wish  may  grow  and  increase 
till  it  becomes  the  governing  philosophy  of  the  human  species."  (4 
Franklin's  Works,  194.) 

t  "  After  all,"  he  wrote,  echoing  the  physiocratic  dogma,  "  this  coun- 
try [i.  e.  England]  is  fond  of  manufactures  beyond  their  real  value,  for 
the  true  source  of  riches  is  husbandry.  Agriculture  is  truly  productive 
of  new  wealth ;  manufactures  only  change  forms,  and  whatever  value 
they  give  to  the  materials  they  work  upon,  they  in  the  meantime  con- 
sume an  equal  value  in  provisions,  etc."  (4  Franklin's  Works,  120.) 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  35 

the  few  noblemen  living  in  the  highest  affluence  and  the 
bulk  of  the  people  living  in  the  most  sordid  wretched- 
ness. "I  thought  often  of  the  happiness  of  New  Eng- 
land," he  continued,  "  where  every  man  is  a  free-holder, 
has  a  vote  in  public  affairs,  lives  in  a  tidy,  warm  house, 
has  plenty  of  good  food  and  fuel,  with  whole  clothes 
from  head  to  foot,  the  manufacture  perhaps  of  his  own 
family."  Comparing  this  condition  with  that  of  Eng- 
land, Ireland,  and  Scotland,  he  declared  that  if  any 
should  envy  the  trade  of  these  countries,  they  could  have 
a  share  of  it  if  they  would  go  barefoot  and  shirtless,  be 
content  to  wear  rags,  and  live  the  year  round  on  potatoes 
and  buttermilk.* 

In  1776,  before  departing  for  France  as  one  01  the 
special  commissioners  from  Congress,  Franklin  sketched 
an  outline  of  the  terms  upon  which  he  supposed  a  peace 
might  be  made  with  Great  Britain,  in  case  opportunity 
for  negotiation  should  be  offered.  Free  trade  was  to  be 
the  basis  of  all  commercial  arrangements.  Peace,  he 
maintained,  was  as  necessary  to  England  as  to  the  states, 
and  although  England  would  no  longer  have  a  monopoly 
her  share  of  the  growing  trade  would  soon  be  greater 
than  the  whole  had  been  before.  \  When  peace  was 
made  it  seemed  that  the  opportunity  had  come  to  begin 
a  new  and  better  system.  "  Restraints  on  the  freedom  of 
commerce  and  intercourse  between  us,"  Franklin  wrote 
Hartley,  "can  afford  no  advantage  equivalent  to  the 
mischief  they  will  do  by  keeping  up  ill-humor  and  pro- 
moting a  total  alienation."  I  The  failure  to  secure  reci- 
procity he  attributed  to  the  want  of  united  action  on  the 


*  4  Franklin's  Works,  440. 
1  See  6  Franklin's  Works,  18. 
$  8  Franklin's  Works,  337. 


36  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

part  of  the  states,*  and  consoled  himself  with  the 
thought  that  the  United  States  could  do  as  well  without 
a  commercial  treaty  as  England. f 

Franklin  favored  the  five  per  cent  impost,  and  ac- 
quiesced in  the  probable  existence  of  tariffs  under  the 
constitution.  But  his  tone  was  one  of  apology,  and  he 
had  no  notion  that  the  new  republic  would  re-enact  the 
foolish  policy  of  England.  To  Mr.  Small  he  wrote,  in 
1787:  "I  have  not  lost  any  of  the  principles  of  public 
economy  you  once  knew  me  possessed  of,  but  to  get  the 
bad  customs  of  a  country  changed  and  new  ones,  though 
better,  introduced,  it  is  necessary  first  to  remove  the 
prejudices  of  the  people,  enlighten  their  ignorance,  and 
to  convince  them  that  their  interest  will  be  promoted  by 
the  proposed  changes,  and  this  is  not  the  work  of  a  day. 
Our  legislators  are  all  landowners,  and  they  are  not  yet 
persuaded  that  all  taxes  are  finally  paid  by  the  land. 
Besides,  our  country  is  so  sparsely  settled,  the  habitations, 
particularly  in  the  back  countries,  being  perhaps  five 
or  six  miles  distant  from  each  other,  that  the  time 
and  labor  of  the  collector  in  going  from  house  to  house, 
and  being  obliged  to  call  often  before  he  can  recover  the 
tax,  amounts  to  more  than  the  tax  is  worth,  and  there- 
fore we  have  been  forced  into  the  mode  of  indirect  taxes 
— that  is,  duties  on  importation  of  goods,  and  excises."  J 
"  We  shall,  as  you  suppose,"  he  wrote  M.  Le  Veillard, 
"have  imposts  on  trade  and  custom-houses,  not  because 
other  nations  have  them,  but  because  we  cannot  at  pres- 
ent do  without  them.  We  want  to  discharge  our  public 
debt  occasioned  by  the  late  war.  .  .  .  When  we  are 


*  8  Franklin's  Works,  349. 
t  9  Franklin's  Works,  279. 
$  9  Franklin's  Works,  414. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  37 

out  of  debt  we  may  leave  our  trade  free,  for  our  ordinary 
charges  of  government  will  not  be  great. "  * 

In  this  response  to  the  new  and  stirring  thought  of 
the  age,  Franklin  by  no  means  stood  alone.  Many  years 
the  senior  of  most  of  the  Eevolutionary  statesmen,!  with 
large  experience  and  renown,  familiar  with  the  thought 
and  refinement  of  Europe,  himself  an  important  contrib- 

*  9  Franklin's  Works,  460 ;  see  also  ib.  471.  In  a  pamphlet  published 
in  Europe,  in  1782,  for  the  information  of  those  who  thought  of  emigra- 
ting to  America,  Franklin  pointed  out  that  legislative  aid  to  manufac- 
tures had  been  rare  in  America  and  of  little  success  in  establishing  a 
manufacture  which  the  country  was  not  yet  so  ripe  for  as  to  encourage 
private  persons  to  set  up;  labor  being  generally  too  dear  and  hands 
difficult  to  be  kept  together.  And  when  the  governments  had  been 
solicited  to  support  such  schemes  by  encouragements  in  money, 
or  by  imposing  duties  on  importation,  it  had  been  generally  refused  on 
the  principle  that  if  the  country  was  ripe  for  manufacturing  it  would  be 
carried  on  by  private  persons  to  advantage,  and  if  not,  it  would  be  folly 
to  think  of  forcing  nature.  (8  Franklin's  Works,  179  et  seq.) 

Franklin's  "  Wail  of  a  Protected  Manufacturer,"  written  in  1789,  may 

be  quoted  as  his  parting  word  on  the  protective  system :  "  Messrs. 

I  am  a  manufacturer  and  was  a  petitioner  for  the  act  to  encourage  and 
protect  the  manufactures  of  this  state.  I  was  very  happy  when  the  act 
was  obtained,  and  I  immediately  added  to  the  price  of  my  manufactures 
as  much  as  it  would  bear  so  as  to  be  a  little  cheaper  than  the  same 
article  imported  and  paying  the  duty.  By  this  addition  I  hoped  to  grow 
richer.  But  as  every  other  manufacturer  whose  wares  are  under  the 
protection  of  this  act  has  done  the  same,  I  begin  to  doubt  whether, 
considering  the  whole  year's  expenses  of  my  family,  with  all  these 
separate  additions  which  I  pay  to  other  manufacturers,  I  am  at  all  a 
gainer.  And  I  confess  I  cannot  but  wish  that,  except  the  protective 
duty  on  my  own  manufacture,  all  duties  of  the  kind  were  taken  off  and 
abolished.  This,  however,  I  must  submit  to  the  better  judgment  of  our 
legislators.  Yours,  etc.,  Q."  (10  Franklin's  Works,  118.)  See  also  4 
Franklin's  Works,  21,  in  more  serious  vein,  on  how  protective  duties 
work. 

f  Franklin  was  twenty-six  years  older  than  Washington,  and  fifty-one 
years  older  than  Hamilton.  He  was  seventy  when  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  adopted,  and  eighty-one  when  he  sat  in  the  Consti- 
tutional Convention  of  1787. 


33  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

utor  to  the  scientific  progress  of  his  time,  he  first,  per- 
haps, caught  the  new  spirit,  and  in  large  measure,  no 
doubt,  imparted  it  to  his  countrymen.  Yet  the  younger 
men  were  hardly  less  keen  than  the  sage  and  philosopher. 
They  too  had  something  of  a  vision  of  "  manifest  des- 
tiny," and  in  their  thought  for  the  future  of  America 
they  laid  hold  of  those  fresh  ideas  of  human  life  and 
human  society  which  characterized  the  philosophers  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  became  the  severe  though 
sober  critics  of  the  old  economy  and  old  civilization.  The 
Adames,  Otis,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Dickinson,  Jay,  Morris, 
Fisher  Ames,  and  others,  were  all,  more  or  less,  born 
into  this  newness  of  life,  and  all,  with  more  or  less  agree- 
ment, felt  the  Revolution  to  be  a  protest  against  the 
Restrictive  system  of  the  Old  World.  All  shared  in  the 
distrust  of  manufactures  and  labored  and  hoped  for  a 
commercial  relation  with  Europe  free  from  the  barriers 
that  had  so  long  existed.  Yet  all  were  too  patriotic  to 
be  willing  to  purchase  commercial  peace  on  the  terms  of 
a  tame  submission  to  British  arrogance,  and  at  last 
reached  practically  the  same  standpoint  in  the  persua- 
sion that  their  theories  were,  for  the  time  at  least,  im- 
possible of  realization. 

Madison,  eminently  a  conservative,  at  twenty -three 
eagerly  read  Dean  Tucker's  tracts,*  and  a  casual  allusion 
to  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  in  1785,  shows  him  familiar 
with  that  great  work.  In  a  letter  to  Jefferson,  in  1784, 
he  argued  for  the  free  use  of  the  Mississippi,  holding 
that  the  settlement  of  the  western  country  depended 
upon  it,  and  that  by  the  free  expansion  of  the  people  the 
establishment  of  internal  manufactures  would  not  only 

*  See  letter  from  Madison  to  Wm.  Bradford,  July  1, 1774;  1  Madison's 
Works,  17. 


THE  COLONIAL   PERIOD.  39 

be  long  delayed,  but  the  consumption  of  foreign  man- 
ufactures increased,  creating  in  turn  an  increased  demand 
for  American  products  of  the  soil.*  In  acknowledging 
the  receipt  of  a  book  on  the  commerce  between  France 
and  the  United  States,  Jefferson  wrote,  in  1786:  "  Were 
I  to  select  any  particular  passages  as  giving  me  particular 
satisfaction,  it  would  be  those  wherein  you  prove  to  the 
United  States  that  they  will  be  more  virtuous,  more  free, 
and  more  happy,  employed  in  agriculture  than  as  car- 
riers or  manufacturers.  It  is  a  truth,  and  a  precious  one 
for  them,  if  they  could  be  persuaded  of  it."  f  Two  years 
later  he  wrote:  "  In  general  it  is  impossible  that  man- 
ufactures should  succeed  in  America,  from  the  high 
price  of  labor.  This  is  occasioned  by  the  great  demand 
of  labor  for  agriculture."  J  In  his  "  Notes  on  Virginia," 
published  in  1781,  Jefferson  stated  his  position  more 
strongly.  The  political  economists  of  Europe,  he  said, 
had  established  it  as  a  principle  that  every  state  should 
endeavor  to  manufacture  for  itself ;  and  this  principle 
like  many  others  was  transferred  to  America  without 
calculating  the  difference  of  circumstances  which  should 
often  produce  difference  of  results.  In  Europe  the  lands 
were  either  cultivated  or  locked  up  against  the  cultivator. 
Manufacture  must  therefore  be  resorted  to  of  necessity, 
not  of  choice,  to  support  the  surplus  of  their  peoples. 
But  in  America  there  was  an  abundance  of  land  courting 
the  industry  of  the  husbandman.  "  Those  who  labor  in 
the  earth  are  the  chosen  people  of  God,  if  ever  he  had  a 
chosen  people.  .  .  .  While  we  have  land  to  labor, 


*  1  Madison's  Works,  96. 

t  Jefferson  to  M.  De  Warville,  Aug.  15, 1786 ;  2  Jefferson's  Works, 

$  Jefferson  to  Thomas  Digges,  June  19,  1788 ;  2  Jefferson's  Works, 
412. 


40  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

then,  let  us  never  wish  to  see  our  citizens  occupied  at  a 
work-bench,  or  twirling  a  distaff.  Carpenters,  masons, 
smiths,  are  wanting  in  husbandry;  but  for  the  general 
operations  of  manufacture,  let  our  workshops  remain  in 
Europe."  * 

Washington,  whose  partiality  for  American  manufac- 
tures was  always  pronounced,  hardly  looked  for  more 
than  the  employment  of  women  and  children,  f  In 
regard  to  the  prospect  of  a  closer  commercial  union  with 
France,  he  wrote  Lafayette,  in  1786:  "There  are  many 
articles  of  manufacture  which  we  stand  absolutely  in  need 
of,  and  shall  continue  to  have  occasion  for,  so  long  as 
we  remain  an  agricultural  people,  .  .  .  that  is  to 
say,  for  ages  to  come/'  J  As  population  increases,  im- 
ports will  necessarily  increase,  argued  Ellsworth  of  Con- 
necticut, urging  the  advantage  of  an  indirect  revenue,  in 
the  debate  on  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  "  because 
our  citizens  will  choose  to  be  farmers,  living  independ- 
ently on  their  freeholds,  rather  than  to  be  manufacturers 
and  work  for  a  groat  a  day."  §  "  The  American  conti- 
nental colonies,"  wrote  John  Dickinson  in  1765,  in  his 
arraignment  of  the  Stamp  Act,  "  are  inhabited  by 
persons  of  small  fortunes  who  are  so  closely  employed 
in  subduing  a  wild  country  for  their  subsistence,  and 
who  would  labor  under  such  difficulties  in  contending 
with  old  and  populous  countries  which  must  excel  them 


*  8  Jefferson's  Works,  405. 

t  "Though  I  would  not  force  the  introduction  of  manufactures  by 
extravagant  encouragements,  and  to  the  prejudice  of  agriculture,  yet  I 
conceive  much  might  be  done  in  the  way  by  women,  children,  and 
others,  without  taking  one  really  necessary  hand  from  tilling  the  earth." 
Washington  to  Lafayette,  Jan.  29,  1789 ;  9  Washington's  Works,  464. 

t  9  Washington's  Works,  192. 

$  2  Elliot's  Debates,  192. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  41 

in  workmanship  and  cheapness,  that  they  have  not  time 
nor  any  temptation  to  apply  themselves  to  manufac- 
tures.* John  Adams,  minister  to  Holland  in  1780,  in 
correcting  certain  misconceptions  regarding  America, 
declared  that  agriculture  ever  was,  and  ever  would  be, 
the  dominant  interest  in  America.  Manufactures  in 
general  had  never  flourished  in  America.  They  em- 
ployed only  women  and  children  who  could  not  work  in 
the  field,  and  men  at  certain  seasons  when  they  could 
not  be  employed  in  agriculture.  Labor  upon  land  was 
more  profitable  than  in  manufactures,  which  they  could 
import  and  purchase  with  the  produce  of  the  soil, 
cheaper  than  they  could  make  them.  "  Since  the  war, 
however,  freight  and  insurance  have  been  so  high  that 
manufactures  have  been  more  attended  to.  ...  But 
these,  for  the  reason  before  given,  will  last  no  longer 
than  the  war  or  than  the  hazard  of  their  trade.  Amer- 
ica is  the  country  of  raw  materials,  and  of  commerce 
enough  to  carry  them  to  a  good  market ;  but  Europe  is 
the  country  for  manufactures  and  commerce.  Thus 
Europe  and  America  will  be  blessings  to  each  other,  if 
some  malevolent  policy  does  not  frustrate  the  purposes 
of  nature."  f 


*  1  Political  Writings  of  John  Dickinson,  43. 

t  7  John  Adams'  Works,  309  et  aeq.  Jefferson  wrote  in  his  "  Notes  on 
Virginia"  (1780):  "Our  external  trade  has  suffered  very  much  from 
the  beginning  of  the  present  contest.  During  this  time  we  have  man- 
ufactured within  our  families  the  most  necessary  articles  of  clothing. 
Those  of  cotton  will  bear  some  comparison  with  the  same  kinds  of  man- 
ufacture in  Europe;  but  those  of  wool,  flax,  and  hemp  are  very  coarse, 
unsightly,  and  unpleasant :  and  such  is  our  attachment  to  agriculture, 
and  such  our  preference  for  foreign  manufactures,  that,  be  it  wise  or 
unwise,  our  people  will  certainly  return  as  soon  as  they  can,  to  the 
raising  of  raw  materials  and  exchanging  them  for  finer  manufactures 
than  they  are  able  to  execute  themselves."  (8  Jefferson's  Works,  404.) 


42  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

But  as  time  went  on  and  the  '  purposes  of  nature  ' 
were  frustrated  by  the  '  malevolent  policy '  of  both 
France  and  England,  as  Britain  resumed  complete  and 
insolent  control  of  commerce,  and  embarrassments  mul- 
tiplied at  home,  the  American  temper  underwent  a  great 
change.  Much  of  the  faith  in  the  beneficent  workings 
of  free  commerce  vanished.  To  some,  at  times,  it  seemed 
better  to  cut  off  all  intercourse  with,  the  rest  of  the  world. 
In  this  mood  Jefferson  wrote:  "  Were  I  to  indulge  my 
own  theory,  I  should  wish  [the  states]  to  practice  neither 
commerce  nor  navigation,  but  to  stand,  with  respect  to 
Europe,  precisely  on  the  footing  of  China."  *  In  the 
same  strain  Adams  expressed  himself  to  Jay:  "  If  all 
intercourse  between  Europe  and  America  could  be  cut 
off  forever,  if  every  ship  we  have  were  burnt,  and  the 
keel  of  another  never  to  be  laid,  we  might  still  be  the 
happiest  people  upon  earth,  and  in  fifty  years  the  most 
powerful."  f  Neither,  however,  meant  to  be  taken  seri- 
ously. This  is  theory  only,  Jefferson  said.  Our  people 
have  a  decided  taste  for  navigation,  and  would  like  to 
throw  open  all  doors  of  commerce,  but  cannot  unless 
others  will  do  it  for  us ;  therefore  it  is  necessary  to 
shackle  them  as  they  shackle  us.  '  Our  people/  confessed 
Adams, '  are  as  aquatic  as  the  tortoises  and  sea-fowl,  and 
the  love  of  commerce,  with  its  conveniences  and  pleasures, 
is  a  habit  in  them  as  unalterable  as  their  natures.  It  is 
in  vain,  then,  to  amuse  ourselves  with  the  thought  of 
annihilating  commerce,  unless  as  philosophical  specula- 
tions. We  are  to  consider  men  and  things  as  practical 
statesmen,  and  to  consider  what  our  constituents  are, 


*  Jefferson  to  Hogendorf,  Oct.  13,  1785 ;    1  Jefferson's  Works,  465. 
Cf .  Jefferson's  credo  in  1799 ;  4  Jefferson's  Works,  268. 
t  Adams  to  Jay,  Dec.  6, 1785;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  357. 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  43 

and  what  they  expect  of  us.  We  shall  find  that  we  must 
have  connections  with  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa;  and 
therefore,  the  sooner  we  form  those  connections  into  a 
judicious  system  the  better  for  us  and  our  children.' 

The  retaliation  here  suggested  soon  became  dominant  in 
the  policy  of  American  statesmen.  The  effort  to  plant  com- 
merce on  new  and  higher  grounds,  the  belief  that  in 
commerce  old  things  ought  to  pass  away  and  a  new  era 
come  in,  was  sincere,  and  the  disappointment  at  the 
failure  to  secure  reciprocity  was  keen.  Adams,  Frank- 
lin, and  Jay  pressed  the  matter  diplomatically,  and 
in  the  belief  that  they  were  acting  for  the  advantage  of 
England  as  well.  Shelburne,  one  of  the  earliest  disci- 
ples oi*  Adam  Smith,  and  a  firm  friend  of  America,  was 
inclined  to  meet  them  half  way.  But  upon  the  over- 
throw of  the  Shelburne  ministry  and  the  advent  of  the 
younger  Pitt,  a  different  tone  was  adopted.  Nor  was 
England's  coolness  toward  reciprocity  without  reason. 
The  fear  of  losing  the  American  trade  at  first  inclined 
the  commercial  interest  to  liberal  treaty  relations.  But 
as  time  went  on  the  English  merchants  gradually  re- 
sumed their  old  trade,  and  with  it  came  back  the  old 
supremacy.  Exaggerated  reports  of  the  disorders  and 
weakness  of  the  Confederation  found  willing  acceptance 
in  England  until  it  seemed  hardly  worth  while  to  respect 
very  rigidly  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of  peace,  much 
less  to  go  to  the  trouble  of  negotiating  new  treaties  with 
a  government  so  imbecile  and  doomed  to  speedy  dissolu- 
tion. The  belief  that  the  states  must  inevitably  split 
apart  and  most  likely  be  glad  to  get  back  under  the 
protection  of  England,  was  almost  universal.  At  any 
rate,  a  trial  had  been  made,  and  English  merchants  had 
easily  carried  off  the  American  trade.  The  Americans 


44  THE  TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

were  not  slow  to  perceive  this  change  of  front,  and  to 
understand  that  commercially  the  war  had  availed  them 
nothing.  Their  offer  of  reciprocity  was  not  only  scorn- 
fully rejected,  but  the  West  India  trade  which  they  had 
formerly  enjoyed  was  now  snatched  from  them.  There 
seemed  nothing  to  do  but  to  meet  restriction  with  restric- 
tion, and  an  eager  inquiry  arose  as  to  what  could  be 
done  to  secure  decent  recognition.  The  proposal  to  give 
Congress  power  to  lay  a  five  per  cent  impost  and  to  reg- 
ulate trade,  as  well  as  the  more  complete  grant  of  author- 
ity in  the  Constitution,  received  its  backing  largely  from 
this  cause. 

"Will  it  not  be  good  policy,"  Madison  ventured  to 
inquire,  in  1784,  "  to  suspend  further  treaties  of  com- 
merce till  measures  shall  have  taken  place  in  America 
which  may  correct  the  idea  in  Europe  of  impotency  in 
the  federal  government  in  matters  of  commerce  ? "  * 
"  Much  indeed  it  is  to  be  wished,  as  I  conceive,"  he  wrote 
a  year  later,  announcing  a  position  which  to  the  end  of 
his  life  he  scarcely  varied  from  even  in  phraseology, 
"that  no  regulations  of  trade,  that  is  to  say,  no  restric- 
tions on  imposts  whatever,  were  necessary.  A  perfect 
system  is  the  system  which  would  be  my  choice.  But 
before  such  a  system  will  be  eligible,  perhaps,  for  the 
United  States,  they  must  be  out  of  debt;  before  it  will 
be  attainable,  all  other  nations  must  concur  in  it. 
Whilst  any  one  of  these  imposes  on  our  vessels,  seamen, 
etc.,  in  their  ports,  clogs  from  which  they  exempt  their 
own,  we  must  either  retort  the  distinction  or  renounce, 
not  merely  a  just  profit,  but  our  only  defence  against 
the  danger  which  may  most  easily  beset  us.  Are  we  not 
at  this  moment  under  this  very  alternative?  The  policy 

*  Madison  to  Jefferson,  April  25,  1784;     1  Madison's  Works,  79. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  45 

of  Great  Britain  (to  say  nothing  of  other  nations)  has 
shut  against  us  the  channels  without  which  our  trade 
with  her  must  be  a  losing  one;  and  she  has  consequently 
the  triumph,  as  we  have  the  chagrin,  of  seeing  accom- 
plished her  prophetic  threats,  that  our  independence 
should  forfeit  commercial  advantages  for  which  it  would 
not  recompense  us  with  new  channels  of  trade."  The 
only  means  of  redress,  he  held,  were  retaliating  regula- 
tions of  trade,  adopted  by  Congress.*  The  same  month 
he  wrote  again:  "The  machinations  of  Great  Britain 
with  regard  to  commerce  have  produced  much  distress 
and  noise  in  Northern  states.  .  .  .  The  sufferers  are 
everywhere  calling  for  such  augmentation  of  the  power 
of  Congress  as  may  effect  relief.  ...  If  anything 
should  reconcile  Virginia  to  the  idea  of  giving  Congress  a 
power  over  her  trade,  it  will  be  that  this  power  is  likely 
to  annoy  Great  Britain,  against  whom  the  animosities 
of  our  citizens  are  still  strong."  f  Of  the  proposed 
Annapolis  Convention  he  wrote  Jefferson:  "If  it  should 
come  to  nothing,  it  will,  I  fear,  confirm  Great  Britain 
and  all  the  world  in  the  belief  that  we  are  not  to  be 
respected  nor  apprehended  as  a  nation  in  matters  of 
commerce."  J 

Jefferson,  then  in  France,  noted  the  new  tendency  and 
its  wholesome  effect.  "  I  am  well  informed,"  he  wrote 
Madison,  "that  the  late  proceedings  in  America  have 
produced  a  wonderful  sensation  in  England  in  our  favor. 
I  mean  the  disposition  which  seems  to  be  becoming 
general,  to  invest  Congress  with  the  regulation  of  our 
commerce,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  measures  taken  to 


*  Madison  to  Monroe,  Aug.  7, 1785 ;  1  Madison's  Works,  170  et  seq. 
t  Madison  to  Jefferson,  Aug.  20, 1785;  1  Madison's  Works,  173. 
t  Madison  to  Jefferson,  March  18, 1786;  1  Madison's  Works,  226. 


46  THE     TARIFF     CONTROVERSY. 

defeat  the  avidity  of  the  British  government  grasping  at 
our  carrying  business.  I  can  add  with  truth,  that  it  was 
not  till  these  symptoms  appeared  in  America  that  I  have 
been  able  to  discover  the  smallest  token  of  respect 
towards  the  United  States  in  any  part  of  Europe."  *  "I 
do  not  know,"  wrote  Washington  at  almost  the  same 
time, "  that  we  can  enter  upon  a  war  of  imposts  with  Great 
Britain  or  any  other  foreign  power ;  but  we  are  certain 
that  this  war  has  been  waged  against  us  by  the  former; 
professedly  upon  a  belief  that  we  never  could  unite  in 
opposition  to  it;  and  I  believe  there  is  no  way  of  putting 
an  end  to  it,  or  at  least  of  stopping  the  increase  of  it,  but 
to  convince  them  of  the  contrary.  Our  trade,  in  all  points 
of  view,  is  as  essential  to  Great  Britain  as  hers  is  to  us; 
and  she  will  exchange  it  upon  reciprocal  and  liberal 
terms,  if  better  cannot  be  had."  f 

In  no  one  of  the  statesmen  of  the  Revolution  was  this 
change  of  temper  more  marked  than  in  John  Adams. 
He  went  abroad  as  one  of  the  commissioners  to  negotiate 
the  treaty  of  peace,  and  became  the  first  American  min- 
ister to  England.  Like  Franklin  and  Jay,  he  felt  him- 
self thoroughly  cut  loose  from  the  mercantile  system, 
and  confident  that  the  new  order  of  things  was  inevit- 
able, went  jauntily  forward  prepared  to  accept  provision- 
ally almost  anything  in  regard  to  trade.  "  I  said  to  my 
brothers,"  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  April  28,  1783,  "I 
shall  be  very  ductile  about  commerce.  I  would  agree  at 
once  to  mutual  naturalization,  or  to  the  article,  as  first 
agreed  on,  by  Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr.  Jay,  with  Mr.  Os- 
wald; or  I  would  agree  to  Mr.  Hartley's  propositions,  to 

*  Jefferson  to  Madison,  Sept.  1, 1785;  1  Jefferson's  Works,  413.  Cf. 
4  Jefferson's  Works,  106. 

t  Washington  to  James  McHenry,  Aug.  22, 1785 ;  9  Washington's 
Works,  123. 


THE    COLONIAL    PERIOD.  47 

let  the  trade  go  on  as  before  the  war,  or  as  with  Nova 
Scotia;  I  could  agree  to  any  of  these  things,  because  that 
time  and  the  natural  course  of  things  will  produce  a  good 
treaty  of  commerce.  Great  Britain  will  soon  see  and  feel 
the  necessity  of  alluring  American  commerce  to  her  ports 
by  facilities  and  encouragements  of  every  kind."  * 

But  this  state  of  feeling  did  not  last.  Reciprocity  not 
secured  at  first  became  less  and  less  probable  as  England 
began  to  experience  a  decided  re-action  toward  the  treaty 
itself.  Adams  was  received  at  court,  but  treated  coldly 
or  with  studied  neglect,  and  England  sent  no  minister 
in  return.  The  feeling  against  America  was  still  very 
bitter,  and  now  much  heightened  by  the  appearance  of 
loyalist  refugees  who  gained  the  ear  of  the  government. 
Of  the  proclamation  of  July  2,  1783,  cutting  off  at  one 
stroke  the  whole  American  trade  with  the  West  Indies, 
except  in  British  vessels,  Adams  wrote  from  Paris:  "A 
jealousy  of  American  ships,  seamen,  carrying  trade* 
and  naval  power,  appears  every  day  more  and  more 
conspicuous.  .  .  .  This  proclamation  is  issued  in 
full  confidence  that  the  United  States  have  no  confidence 
in  one  another;  that  they  cannot  agree  to  act  in  a  body 
as  one  nation;  that  they  cannot  agree  upon  any  naviga- 
tion act  which  may  be  common  to  the  thirteen  states. 
Our  proper  remedy  would  be  to  confine  our  exports 
to  American  ships."  f  "  The  British  proclamation  of 

*  3  John  Adams'  Works,  363.  See  also  his  Diary,  May  21  and  22, 
1783 ;  3  John  Adams'  Works,  371  et  seg. 

t  8  John  Adams'  Works,  97.  Adams  immediately  had  a  conversation 
with  Vergennes,  the  French  minister,  and  learning  that  in  the  French 
West  Indies  the  United  States  had  two  free  ports,  he  wrote  to  Living- 
ston: "Upon  the  whole,  I  was  much  pleased  with  this  conversation 
and  conclude  from  it  that  we  shall  do  very  well  in  the  French  West 
India  Islands ;  perhaps  the  better  in  them,  the  worse  we  are  treated 
by  the  English ;"  Ib.,  100. 


48  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

July 2,"  he  declared,  "is  the  result  of  refugee  politics;  it 
is  intended  to  encourage  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia  and 
their  fisheries,  to  support  still  the  ruins  of  their  naviga- 
tion act,  and  to  take  from  us  the  carriage  even  of  our  own 
productions.  A  system  which  has  in  it  so  little  respect 
for  us,  and  is  so  obviously  calculated  to  give  a  blow  to 
our  nurseries  of  ships  and  seamen,  could  never  have 
been  adopted  but  from  the  opinion  that  we  had  no  com- 
mon legislation  for  the  government  of  commerce.  .  .  . 
I  hope  the  thirteen  states  will  unite  in  some  measures 
to  counteract  this  policy  of  Britain,  so  evidently  selfish, 
unsocial,  and  I  had  almost  said,  hostile."  * 

Two  years  later,  after  his  experience  in  London,  he 
could  write  still  more  strongly:  "  The  popular  pulse 
seems  to  beat  high  against  America.  .  .  .  Their 
attachment  to  their  navigation  act,  as  well  as  that  of  all 
other  parties  here,  is  grown  so  strong,  and  their  deter- 
mination to  consider  us  as  foreigners,  and  to  undermine 
our  navigation,  and  to  draw  away  our  seamen,  is  so  fixed 
.  .  .  that  I  despair  of  any  equal  treaty.  ...  It 
cannot  therefore  be  too  earnestly  recommended  to  all 
the  states  to  concur  with  the  state  of  New  York,  in 
giving  to  Congress  full  power  to  make  treaties  of  com- 
merce, and,  in  short,  to  govern  all  our  external  com- 
merce, for,  I  really  believe,  it  must  come  to  that. 
Whether  prohibitions  or  high  duties  will  be  most  politic 
is  a  great  question."  f  A  little  earlier  he  had  written 
Jay  concerning  the  outlook:  "  The  Britons  boast  that  all 
the  prophecies  of  the  loss  of  the  American  trade  from 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  have  proved  false; 
that  the  experiment  has  been  tried  and  the  contest 
decided;  that  there  was  at  the  peace  a  competition  of 

*  8  John  Adams'  Works,  101 ;  see  also  letter  to  Livingston,  ib.  105. 
t  Adams  to  Jay,  July  19,  1785;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  282. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  49 

the  commercial  nations  of  Europe  for  the  prize;  that  the 
superior  abilities  of  the  British  manufacturers,  and  the 
greater  capital  of  their  merchants,  have  enabled  them 
to  give  our  traders  better  bargains  and  longer  credit 
than  any  others  in  Europe;  that,  as  we  love  our  interests 
and  have  small  fortunes,  we  must  come  to  them  who  can 
furnish  us  with  goods  of  the  best  qualities  at  the  cheap- 
est rates,  and  allow  us  the  longest  time  to  pay.  .  .  .' 
You  will  negotiate  for  reciprocity  in  commerce  to  very 
little  purpose,  while  the  British  ministers  and  merchants 
are  certain  that  they  shall  enjoy  all  the  profits  of  our 
commerce,  under  their  own  partial  regulations."  *  Three 
months  later  he  wrote  again:  "  I  find  the  spirit  of  the 
times  very  different  from  that  which  you  and  I  saw 
when  we  were  here  together,  in  the  months  of  November 
and  December,  1783.  .  :  .  Now  the  boast  is,  that 
our  commerce  has  returned  to  its  old  channels,  and  that 
it  can  follow  in  no  other;  now  the  utmost  contempt  of 
our  commerce  is  freely  expressed  in  pamphlets,  gazettes, 
coffee-houses,  and  in  common  street  talk.  I  wish  I  could 
not  add  to  this  the  discourses  of  cabinet  counsellors  and 
ministers  of  state,  as  well  as  members  of  both  houses  of 
Parliament.  The  national  judgment  and  popular  voice 
is  so  decided  in  favor  of  the  navigation  acts,  that  neither 
administration  nor  opposition  dare  avow  a  thought  of 
relaxing  them  further  than  has  already  been  done. 
This  decided  cast  has  been  given  to  public  opinion  and 
the  national  councils  by  two  facts,  or  rather  presump- 
tions. The  first  is,  that  in  all  events  this  country  is  sure 
of  the  American  commerce;  the  second  is,  that  the 
American  states  are  not  and  cannot  be  united."  f 

*  Adams  to  Jay,  May  5, 1785 ;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  240  el  seq.    Cf. 
letter  of  June  26,  ib.  274. 
t  Adams  to  Jay,  Aug.  6,  1785 ;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  289. 


50  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

As  to  ways  and  means  Adams  turned  more  and  more 
to  retaliation  as  the  only  effective  remedy.  Among 
indirect  methods  he  suggested  measures  for  encouraging 
the  growth  in  the  United  States  of  West  India  articles, 
the  encouragement  of  manufactures,  especially  of  wool 
and  iron,  export  and  import  duties  on  British  ships,  and 
the  immediate  sending  of  ships  to  China.  The  states, 
he  told  Jay,  might  lay  such  discouragements  on  British 
ships  and  manufactures,  as  would  not  only  benefit  them- 
selves but  show  England  her  own  weakness.  Heavy 
duties  might  be  laid  on  luxuries  from  Great  Britain 
which  would  discourage  the  extravagant  use  of  them  in 
America,  place  other  nations  upon  as  good  or  a  better 
footing  than  the  English,  "  and  raise  a  revenue  for  the 
public  out  of  that  enthusiasm  for  England  which  has 
been,  and  is  still,  so  unwise  in  itself,  and  so  hurtful  to 
our  country."  *  The  refusal  of  the  states  to  grant  Con- 
gress power  to  levy  a  five  per  cent  duty  and  to  regulate 
commerce  was  rather  bewildering  to  Adams,  who  was 
persuaded,  however,  that  the  objections  could  be  only 
technical.  He  could  not  conceive  that  there  could  be 
opposition  to  the  policy  itself,  and  felt  sure  the  states 
individually  would  readily  comply  with  a  recommenda- 
tion of  Congress  wholly  to  prohibit  British  vessels  and 
merchandise.  "  If  Congress  should  enter  in  earnest 
into  this  commercial  war,"  he  declared,  "  it  must  neces- 
sarily be  a  long  one."  But  he  would  not  stop  at  half 
measures.  They  must  take  higher  ground  than  the 
British.  They  must  take  measures  by  which  the  in- 
crease of  shipping  would  be  not  only  encouraged  but 
rendered  inevitable.  They  must  adopt  in  all  the  states 
the  regulations  that  were  once  made  in  England.  He 

*  8  John  Adams'  Works,  242. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  51 

should  be  sorry  to  adopt  a  monopoly;    but  driven  by 
necessity,  he  would  not  do  things  by  halves.* 

August  10,  1785,  Adams  wrote  to  Jay,  referring  to  the 
recent  arret  of  Louis  XVI  advocating  liberality  in  trade: 
"As  the  French  court  has  condescended  to  adopt  our 
principle  in  theory,  I  am  very  much  afraid  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  imitate  their  wisdom  in  practice,  and  exclude 
from  the  United  States,  or  suffer  to  be  imported  by  our 
nation  only,  and  in  their  own  ships,  those  foreign  goods 
which  would  be  liurtful  to  the  United  States  and  their 
manufactories,  make  the  balance  of  trade  to  be  against 
them,  or  annihilate  or  diminish  their  shipping  or  mar- 
iners. We  have  hitherto  been  the  bubbles  of  our  own 
philosophical  and  equitable  liberality;  and,  instead  of 
meeting  correspondent  sentiments,  both  France  and 
England  have  shown  a  constant  disposition  to  take  a 
selfish  and  partial  advantage  of  us  because  of  them,  to 
turn  them  to  the  diminution  or  destruction  of  our  own 
means  of  trade  and  strength.  I  hope  we  shall  be  the 
dupes  no  longer  than  we  must.  I  would  venture  upon 
monopolies  and  exclusions,  if  they  were  found  to  be  the 
only  arms  of  defence  against  monopolies  and  exclusions, 
without  fear  of  offending  Dean  Tucker  or  the  ghost  of 
Doctor  Quesnay."  \  Adams  told  Pitt  that  the  most 
judicious  men  in  America  had  been  long  balancing  in 
their  minds  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  a  com- 
merce perfectly  free  on  one  side,  and  of  a  navigation  act 
on  the  other,  that  the  present  time  was  a  critical  one, 
and  that  the  balance  was  inclining  toward  a  navigation 
act.  "  But,"  he  wrote  Jay,  "  I  do  not  expect  any  answer 
at  all  before  next  spring,  nor  then  unless  intelligence 

*  8  John  Adams'  Works,  241,  274,  291,  292. 
t  8  John  Adams'  Works,  299. 


52  THE    TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

should  arrive  of  all  the  states  adopting  the  navigation 
act,  or  authorizing  Congress  to  do  it;  and  even  in  that 
case,  I  am  inclined  to  think  they  will  try  the  experiment 
and  let  our  navigation  acts  operate,  to  satisfy  themselves 
which  people  will  first  roar  out  with  pain."  *  "  Patience 
under  all  the  unequal  burdens  they  impose  upon  our 
commerce,"  he  wrote  a  few  days  later,  "  will  do  us  no 
good;  it  will  contribute  in  no  degree  to  preserve  the 
peace  with  this  country.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  but 
retaliation,  reciprocal  prohibitions  and  imposts,  and  put- 
ting ourselves  in  a  posture  of  defence,  will  have  any 
effect.  .  .  .  Confining  exports  to  our  own  ships,  and 
laying  on  heavy  duties  upon  all  foreign  luxuries,  and 
encouraging  our  own  manufactures,  appear  to  me  to  be 
our  only  resource."  f 

Adams'  attitude  toward  the  doctrines  of  free  com- 
merce, which  he  had  once  so  thoroughly  embraced,  took 
on  something  of  bitterness  as  America's  condition  be- 
came more  and  more  alarming.  "  If  the  United  States 
would  adopt  the  principle  of  the  French  economists,"  he 
wrote  Jay,  "  and  allow  the  ships  and  merchants  of  all 
nations  equal  privileges  with  their  own  citizens,  they  need 
not  give  themselves  any  further  trouble  about  treaties 
or  ambassadors.  The  consequence,  nevertheless,  would 
be  the  sudden  annihilation  of  all  their  manufactures 
and  navigation.  We  should  have  the  most  luxurious 
set  of  farmers  that  ever  existed,  and  should  not  be  able 
to  defend  our  sea-coasts  against  the  insults  of  a  pirate."  J 

The  general  trend  of  all  these  utterances  is  sufficiently 
evident.  They  were  the  expressions  of  men  who,  among 


*  Adams  to  Jay,  Aug.  25, 1785 ;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  302-310. 
t  Adams  to  Jay,  Aug.  30,  1785 ;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  313. 
t  Adams  to  Jay,  Feb.  26, 1786 ;  8  John  Adams'  Works,  381. 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  53 

other  fruits  of  independence,  counted  the  abolition  of 
shackles  upon  trade  as  one  of  the  most  important.  In 
their  own  achievement  of  independence  and  in  the  phil- 
osophy which  environed  it,  they  thought  they  saw  the 
beginning  of  the  new  heavens  and  new  earth  in  social 
and  political  relations.  They  put  their  hand  to  the 
work  in  full  readiness  to  accept  the  most  altruistic  con- 
ception of  human  society.  But  their  social  philosophy 
was  more  securely  grounded  than  their  economic.  Ab- 
stract laissez-faire  as  law  in  political  economy  they  hardly 
got  a  glimpse  of,  or  perceived  the  full  bearing  of  its  crit- 
icism upon  mercantilism.  And  they  were  pre-eminently 
Americans  and  of  heroic  mould.  When  they  found  that 
commercial  shackles  were  not  to  be  struck  off  at  their 
bidding,  the  effect  varied  with  their  several  tempera- 
ments and  the  abandon  with  which  they  had  given 
themselves  to  the  new  gospel.  Conservatives  like  Mad- 
ison retained  their  ideal  unchanged,  but  resolutely  sep- 
arated it  from  the  practical  problem  in  hand.  Timid 
republicans  like  Jefferson  involuntarily  shrank  back 
from  any  foreign  intercourse  whatever.  Sturdy,  impet- 
uous patriots  like  Adams  never  recovered  from  the  shock 
to  their  vanity  in  the  discovery  that  their  youthful 
theories  would  not  work,  and  in  the  re-action  a  feeling 
of  resentment  led  them  to  go  even  beyond  Europe  in 
their  advocacy  of  restrictions.*  All  this  is  easily  under- 
stood, and,  under  the  circumstances,  perfectly  natural. 
However,  it  was  not  a  very  scientific  or  logical  position, 
and  in  itself  was  a  rather  inadequate  support  for  the 
policy  of  a  nation.  While  many  of  the  old  errors  might 
creep  back  and  become  intrenched  again,  the  mercantile 

*  Of  course,  the  larger  and  more  important  result — free  trade  and 
commerce  among  the  states— was  secured. 


54  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

system  as  a  whole  was  too  strongly  discredited  to  be  ever 
again  accepted  as  the  basis  of  a  great  public  policy.  For 
the  present,  indeed,  the  problem  was  comparatively 
simple,  and  never  was  a  measure  more  completely 
sanctioned  by  common  consent  than  the  first  tariff  under 
the  Constitution.  What  was  needed  was  the  placing  of 
the  inevitable  policy  on  broader  and  stronger  grounds, — 
a  need  which  in  due  time  was  to  be  supplied  by 
Hamilton, 

Hamilton's  position  agreed  in  the  main  with  that  out- 
lined by  Madison  and  Adams,  though  it  was  not  reached 
from  the  same  starting-point.  Of  the  notion  of  giving 
Congress  power  to  regulate  commerce  he  was  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  persistent  advocates,  but  he  was  not 
driven  to  this  by  the  failure  of  other  ideals  of  commer- 
cial policy.  Unlike  Madison  and  Adams  he  wasted  no 
regrets  for  what  was  at  best  a  policy  impossible  of  reali- 
zation. Unlike  them  he  was  feeling  his  way  toward  a 
system  based  not  on  the  injustice  of  other  nations,  but 
springing  from  national  needs  and  conditions.  Already 
he  was  working  over  in  his  mind  an  American  policy, 
and  in  his  attitude  toward  the  new  powers  of  Congress  in 
the  proposed  Constitution,  he  stood  at  the  farthest  re- 
move from  the  apologetic  tone  of  Franklin.  He  failed 
to  escape  from  some  of  the  errors  of  mercantilism,  but 
his  essential  position  was  not  founded  in  them.  He 
borrowed  from  Hume  and  Adam  Smith  and  physiocrats 
alike,  but  criticised  all  in  the  free  and  easy,  though 
sympathetic,  fashion  of  a  man  who  did  his  own  think- 
ing, and  by  none  was  led  away  from  practical  problems 
from  the  American  standpoint.  He  recognized,  as  all 
did,  the  supremacy  of  agriculture,  but  he  had  no  predi- 
lection for  workshops  in  Europe.  More  than  this,  and 


THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD.  55 

what  made  him  essentially  the  leader  in  the  new  eco- 
nomic policy  of  America,  he  believed  in  the  inherent 
usefulness,  for  the  time  at  least,  of  restrictive  legislation. 
"  The  vesting  Congress  with  the  power  of  regulating 
trade,"  wrote  Hamilton,  in  1782,  "  ought  to  have  been  a 
principal  object  of  the  Confederation.  .  .  .  It  is  as 
necessary  for  the  purposes  of  commerce  as  of  revenue. 
There  are  some  who  maintain  that  trade  will  regulate 
itself,  and  is  not  to  be  benefited  by  the  encouragements 
or  restraints  of  government.  .  .  .  [This  is]  contra- 
dicted by  the  numerous  institutions  and  laws  that  exist 
everywhere  for  the  benefit  of  trade,  by  the  pains  taken 
to  cultivate  particular  branches  and  to  discourage  others, 
by  the  known  advantages  derived  from  those  measures, 
and  by  the  palpable  evils  that  would  attend  their  dis- 
continuance. ...  To  preserve  the  balance  of  trade 
in  favor  of  a  nation  ought  to  be  a  leading  aim  of  its 
policy.  The  avarice  of  individuals  may  frequently  find 
its  account  in  pursuing  channels  of  traffic  prejudicial  to 
that  balance,  to  which  the  government  may  be  able  to 
oppose  effectual  impediments.  There  may,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  a  possibility  of  opening  new  sources,  which 
though  accompanied  with  great  difficulties  in  the  com- 
mencement, would  in  the  event  amply  reward  the  trou- 
ble and  expense  of  bringing  them  to  perfection.  The 
undertaking  may  often  exceed  the  influence  and  capitals 
of  individuals.  .  .  .  The  contrary  opinion,which  has 
grown  into  a  degree  of  vogue  among  us,  has  originated  in 
the  injudicious  attempts  made  at  different  times  to  effect  a 
regulation  of  prices.  It  became  a  cant  phrase  among 
the  opposers  of  these  attempts,  that  trade  must  regulate 
itself;  by  which  at  first  was  only  meant  that  it  had  its 
fundamental  laws,  agreeable  to  which  its  general  opera- 


56  THE   TAEIFP   CONTROVERSY. 

tions  must  be  directed,  and  that  any  violent  attempt  in 
oppositions  to  these  would  commonly  miscarry.  In  this 
sense  the  maxim  was  reasonable,  but  it  has  since  been 
extended  to  militate  against  all  interference  by  the  sov- 
ereign." The  rapid  progress  of  trade  in  England,  he 
declared,  was  due,  in  great  measure,  to  the  fostering 
care  of  the  government,  and  Dutch  prosperity  was  due  to 
the  strictness  of  their  commercial  regulations.  Owing  to 
a  different  spirit  in  the  government,  France  was  much 
later  in  commercial  improvements;  "  nor  would  her  trade 
have  been  at  this  time  in  so  prosperous  a  condition,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  abilities  and  indefatigable  endeavors 
of  the  great  Colbert.  .  .  .  The  establishment  of  the 
woolen  manufacture  in  a  kingdom  where  nature  seemed 
to  have  denied  the  means,  is  one,  among  many  proofs, 
how  much  may  be  effected  in  favor  of  commerce  by  the 
attention  and  patronage  of  a  wise  administration."  f 

One  of  the  objects  Hamilton  kept  in  the  foreground 
was  the  raising  of  a  revenue,  and  for  this  he  insisted 

t  The  Continentalist,  No.  5,  April  18, 1782 ;  1  Hamilton's  Works,  254- 
2C3.  Hamilton  was  only  twenty-five,  and  in  his  maturity  would  hardly 
have  subscribed  to  so  much  mercantilism.  Still  he  was  essentially  a 
special  pleader  even  when  he  argued  most  nobly  and  with  most  signal 
ability.  In  this  same  number  of  the  Continentalist  he  asserted  that  the 
maxim  that  the  consumer  pays  the  duty  had  been  admitted  in  theory 
with  too  little  reserve,  and  was  frequently  contradicted  in  practice. 
True,  he  said,  the  merchant  would  be  unwilling  to  let  the  duty  be 
deducted  from  his  profits,  if  the  market  permitted ;  but  this  often  was 
not  practicable,  for  price  was  determined  by  demand  and  supply.  But 
in  the  report  drawn  up  by  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Fitzsimons,  in  1782, 
in  answer  to  Ehode  Island's  objections  to  the  proposed  impost,  it  was 
stated  that  the  "concurrent  opinions  of  the  ablest  commercial  and  polit- 
ical observers,  have  established  beyond  controversy,this  general  principle 
that  every  duty  on  imposts  is  incorporated  with  the  price  of  the  com- 
modity and  ultimately  paid  by  the  consumer,  with  a  profit  on  the  duty 
itself  as  a  compensation  to  the  merchant  for  the  advance  of  his  money." 
(2  Hamilton's  Works,  2.) 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  57 

that  no  mode  could  be  so  convenient  as  an  impost. 
There  would  be  no  temptation  to  abuse  this  power,  he 
argued,  because  experience  showed  that  moderate  duties 
were  more  productive  than  high  ones.  In  his  resolu- 
tions in  Congress,  June,  1783,  for  a  general  convention, 
he  named,  among  other  defects  in  the  Confederation, 
that  of  not  vesting  in  Congress  a  general  superintend- 
ence of  trade,  "  equally  necessary  in  the  view  of  revenue 
and  regulation  ...  of  regulation,  because  by  gen- 
eral prohibitions  of  particular  articles,  by  a  judicious 
arrangement  of  duties,  sometimes  by  bounties  on  the 
manufacture  or  exportation  of  certain  commodities,  in- 
jurious branches  of  commerce  might  be  discouraged, 
favorable  branches  encouraged,  useful  products  and 
manufactures  promoted."  * 

In  No.  11  of  the  Federalist,  he  declared  that  Europe 
was  uneasy  about  the  adventurous  spirit  which  seemed 
to  distinguish  the  commercial  character  of  the  United 
States,  and  therefore  would  naturally  attempt  to  foster 
divisions  among  them,  in  order  to  deprive  them,  as  far 
as  possible,  of  an  active  commerce  in  their  own  ships. 
"  By  prohibitory  regulations  extending,  at  the  same 
time,  throughout  the  states,  we  may  oblige  foreign  coun- 
tries to  bid  against  each  other,  for  the  privileges  of  our 
markets.  This  assertion  will  not  appear  chimerical  to 
those  who  are  able  to  appreciate  the  importance  [to  any 
manufacturing  nation]  of  the  markets  of  three  millions 


*  1  Hamilton's  Works,  292.  Hamilton  saw  the  obstacle  which  the 
clearness  of  labor  put  in  the  way  of  manufactures,  and  in  No.  6  of  the 
Continentalist  he  frankly  declared  that  it  ought  to  be  a  capital  object  of 
their  policy  to  reduce  the  price  of  labor.  (1  Hamilton's  Works,  264-273.) 
He  was  too  tactful,  however,  to  continue  this  line  of  argument,  and  in 
his  Report  on  Manufactures  he  endeavored  to  show  that  the  dearnesa 
of  labor  was  not  an  obstacle  to  manufacturing. 


58  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

of  people  ...  for  the  most  part  exclusively  addicted 
to  agriculture,  and  likely  from  local  circumstances  to 
remain  so."  * 

All  this  was  doubtless  vague  enough  and  loosely  ar- 
gued. But  it  illustrates  the  general  bend  of  Hamilton's 
mind  toward  a  practical  solution  of  the  question.  "  Gen- 
eral principles  in  subjects  of  this  nature,"  he  had  said 
in  a  pamphlet  already  quoted,  "  ought  always  to  be 
advanced  with  caution;  in  an  experimental  analysis 
there  are  found  such  a  number  of  exceptions  as  tend  to 
render  them  very  doubtful;  and  in  questions  which 
affect  the  existence  and  collective  happiness  of  these 
states,  all  nice  and  abstract  distinctions  should  give  way 
to  plainer  interests  and  to  more  obvious  and  simple  rules 
of  conduct."  f 

The  picture  commonly  given  of  the  period  from  1783 
t<5  1789,  between  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution,  is  one  of  demoralization  and  almost 
total  collapse.  The  effective  background  which  such  a 
representation  gives  to  a  glowing  canvas  of  the  United 
States  under  the  Constitution,  affords  a  temptation  that 
few  historical  artists  can  resist.  The  times  were  bad 
enough  and  critical  enough,  it  is  true.  They  were  cer- 
tainly more  critical  than  some  of  the  statesmen  of  that 
time  realized.  Jefferson  could  see  in  Shay's  rebellion 
nothing  but  a  sign  of  healthful  vitality,  and  Patrick 
Henry,  and  George  Clinton,  and  Benjamin  Harrison 
found  a  constitution  which  gave  Congress  power  to  leg- 
islate for  all  the  states  far  more  unbearable  than  the 
disorders  of  the  Confederation.  Yet  those  who  saw  most 
clearly  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  saw  also  the  inherent 

*  9  Hamilton's  Works,  60,  61. 

t  The  Continentalist,  No.  5,  April  18,  1782;  1  Hamilton's  Works,  262. 


THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD.  59 

soundness  of  the  body  politic  and  the  strong  recupera- 
tive forces  which  would  be  at  work  could  its  organs  once 
be  gotten  into  healthy  action.  Washington,  Madison, 
Jefferson,  and  even  Franklin  at  times  despaired  and 
could  see  only  gloom  in  the  future.  But  the  stronger 
possibilities  of  success  nerved  them  for  action,  and  kept 
firm,  for  the  most  part,  their  faith  in  the  destiny  of  the 
Republic. 

Want  of  unity  and  the  weakness  of  the  government 
had  lost  the  states  their  great  opportunity  of  pressing 
reciprocity  to  a  successful  issue.  The  advantage  of  cap- 
ital and  credit  firmly  re-established  English  commercial 
supremacy,  and  now  the  West  Indian  trade  was  snatched 
from  them.  At  home  matters  were  in  some  respects 
worse.  The  states  launched  into  reckless  experiments 
with  paper  money,  adopted  hostile  regulations  against 
one  another,  and  discontent  not  infrequently  broke  out 
into  internal  discords.  Not  a  single  state  complied  with 
the  requisitions  of  Congress,  not  enough  money  could 
be  coaxed  out  of  the  states  to  meet  ordinary  expenses, 
and  the  best  men  resigned  and  went  home  to  their  own 
legislatures.*  "  No  morn  ever  dawned  more  favorably 
than  ours  did,"  wrote  Washington,  "  and  no  day  was 
ever  more  clouded  than  the  present."  f 

Yet  all  this  expressed  at  most  a  vivid  prophecy  of 
what  might  happen  if  things  did  not  begin  to  mend. 
But  things  were  not  past  mending,  and  this  the  best 
men  strongly  felt.  The  harvests  were  generally  good, 
prices  satisfactory,  labor  employed,  and  the  country  rap- 
idly growing.  In  these  circumstances  it  needed  only  a 
cure  for  political  ills  to  start  the  states  on  that  career  of 

*  See  1  Madison's  Works,  155,  227,  233,  246. 

t  Washington  to  Madison,  Nov.  5, 1786;  9  Washington's  Works,  206. 


60  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

prosperity  which  Franklin  and  Washington  and  their 
compeers  so  strongly  believed  to  be  in  store  for  them. 

Even  Madison  did  not  fail  to  note  that  they  were  at 
times  tasting  some  pleasant  industrial  fruits  of  inde- 
pendence, in  better  prices  and  more  favorable  trade.* 
Adams,  in  his  optimistic  letters  from  Holland,  written 
in  1780,  declared  that  as  to  poverty  there  was  hardly  a 
beggar  in  the  country.  The  greatest  source  of  grief  and 
affliction  was  in  the  fluctuations  of  the  paper  money; 
but  this,  he  said,  although  it  occasioned  unhappiness, 
had  no  violent  or  fatal  effects,  f  In  1785,  while  noting 
the  discouragement  to  shipping,  seamen,  and  the  carry- 
ing trade,  he  cited  the  high  prices  of  American  produce 
and  the  low  prices  of  foreign  merchandise,  as  proof  of 
the  prosperity  of  the  preceding  year.  J  He  told  Lord 
Carmarthen  that  the  people  were  nineteen-twentieths  of 
them  farmers;  that  these  had  sold  their  produce  dearer, 
and  purchased  the  manufactures  of  Europe  cheaper, 
since  the  peace,  than  ever;  but  that  the  situation  of  the 
merchants  both  in.  America  and  in  England,  had  been, 
and  continued  to  be,  very  distressing/'  § 

For  the  Chevalier  de  la  Luzerne,  Washington  drew,  in 
1786,  a  hopeful  picture.  After  referring  to  the  proposed 
grant  to  Congress  of  the  power  to  regulate  trade,  he 
wrote:  "  In  other  respects  our  internal  governments  are 
daily  acquiring  strength.  The  laws  have  their  fullest 
energy,  justice  is  well  administered  ;  robbery,  violence, 
or  murder  is  not  heard  of  from  New  Hampshire  to  Geor- 
gia. The  people  at  large,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  are  more 

*  See  letter  to  Jefferson,  Aug.  20, 1784;  1  Madison's  Works,  92. 
t  See  7  John  Adams'  Works,  305. 
t  8  John  Adams'  Works,  245. 
§  8  John  Adams'  Works,  270. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD.  61 

industrious  than  they  were  before  the  war.  Economy 
begins  to  prevail,  partly  from  necessity  and  partly  from 
choice  and  habit.  The  seeds  of  prosperity  are  scattered 
over  an  immense  tract  of  western  country.  In  the  old 
states,  which  were  the  theatres  of  hostility,  it  is  wonder- 
ful to  see  how  soon  the  ravages  of  war  are  repaired. 
Houses  are  rebuilt,  fields  enclosed,  stocks  of  cattle,  which 
were  destroyed,  are  replaced,  and  many  a  desolated  ter- 
ritory assumes  again  the  cheerful  appearance  of  cultiva- 
tion. In  manjr  places  the  vestiges  of  conflagration  and 
ruin  are  hardly  to  be  traced.  The  arts  of  peace,  such  as 
clearing  rivers,  building  bridges,  and  establishing  con- 
veniences for  traveling,  are  assiduously  promoted.  .  .  . 
I  am  sensible  that  the  picture  of  our  situation  which 
has  been  exhibited  in  Europe  since  the  peace,  has  been 
of  a  very  different  complexion;  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  all  the  unfavorable  features  have  been  much 
heightened  by  the  medium  of  the  English  newspapers."  * 
To  Lafayette  he  wrote,  with  prophetic  instinct,  after 
the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  had  become  a  cer- 
tainty: "And  then,  I  expect  that  many  blessings  will 
be  attributed  to  our  new  government,  which  are  now 
taking  their  rise  from  that  industry  and  frugality  into 
the  practice  of  which  the  people  have  been  forced  from 
necessity.  I  really  believe  that  there  never  was  so  much 
labor  and  economy  to  be  found  in  the  country  as  at  the 
present  moment.  If  they  persist  in  the  habits  they  are 
acquiring  the  good  effects  will  soon  be  distinguishable. 
When  the  people  shall  find  themselves  secure  under  an 
energetic  government,  when  foreign  nations  shall  be 
disposed  to  give  us  equal  advantages  in  commerce  from 
dread  of  retaliation,  when  the  burdens  of  war  shall  be 


*  Washington  to  Luzerne,  Aug.  1,  1786;  9  Washington's  Works,  184. 


62  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

in  a  manner  done  away  by  the  sale  of  western  lands, 
when  the  seeds  of  happiness  which  are  sown  here  shall 
begin  to  expand  themselves,  .and  when  every  one,  under 
his  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  shall  begin  to  taste  the  fruits 
of  freedom,  then  all  these  blessings  (for  all  these  bless- 
ings will  come)  will  be  referred  to  the  fostering  influence 
of  the  new  government.  Whereas  many  causes  will 
have  conspired  to  produce  them."  *  To  Jefferson  he 
wrote:  "We  may  perhaps  rejoice  that  the  people  have 
been  ripened  by  misfortune  for  the  reception  of  a  good 
government.  They  are  emerging  from  the  gulf  of  dissi- 
pation and  debt  into  which  they  had  precipitated  them- 
selves at  the  close  of  the  war.  Economy  and  industry 
are  evidently  gaining  ground.  Not  only  agriculture, 
but  even  manufactures,  are  much  more  attended  to  than 
formerly.  Notwithstanding  the  shackles  under  which 
our  trade  in  general  labors,  commerce  to  the  East  Indies 
is  prosecuted  with  considerable  success.  .  .  .  This 
year  the  exports  from  Massachusetts  have  amounted  to 
a  great  deal  more  than  their  imports.  I  wish  this  was 
the  case  everywhere."  f  "  What  has  been  considered  at 
the  moment  as  a  disadvantage,"  he  wrote  Samuel  Han- 
son, "  will  probably  turn  out  for  our  good.  While  our 
commerce  has  been  considerably  curtailed,  for  want  of 
that  extensive  credit  formerly  given  in  Europe,  and  for 
default  of  remittances,  the  useful  arts  have  been  almost 
perceptibly  pushed  to  a  considerable  degree  of  perfection. 
,  .  .  No  diminution  in  agriculture  has  taken  place  at 
the  time  when  greater  and  more  substantial  improve- 
ments in  manufactures  were  making  than  were  ever 

*  Washington  to  Lafayette,  June  18, 1788 ;  9  Washington's  Works,  382. 
t  Washington  to  Jefferson,  Aug.  31,  1788;   9  Washington's  Works, 
427. 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD.  63 

before  known  in  America.  ...  I  hope  it  will  not 
be  a  great  while  before  it  will  be  unfashionable  for  a 
gentleman  to  appear  in  any  other  dress  [than  home- 
spun]. Indeed,  we  have  already  been  too  long  subject 
to  British  prejudices.  I  use  no  porter  or  cheese  in  my 
family,  but  such  as  is  made  in  America."  * 

Jefferson's  opinions  were  not  less  pronounced,  though 
they  perhaps  exhibited  faith  rather  than  knowledge.  To 
Baron  Geismar  he  wrote,  Sept.  6,  1785:  "From  the 
London  Gazettes,  and  the  papers  copying  them,  you  are 
led  to  suppose  that  all  there  [i.  e.  in  the  United  States]  is 
anarchy,  discontent,  and  civil  war.  Nothing,  however, 
is  less  true.  There  are  not  on  the  face  of  ^the  earth, 
more  tranquil  governments  than  ours,  nor  a  happier  and 
more  contented  people.  Their  commerce  has  not  as  yet 
found  the  channels  which  their  new  relations  with  the 
world  will  offer  to  best  advantage,  and  the  old  ones 
remain  as  yet  unopened  by  new  conventions.  This 
occasions  a  stagnation  in  the  sale  of  their  produce,  the 
only  truth  among  all  the  circumstances  published  about 
them."  f  "  With  all  the  defects  of  our  Constitution, 
whether  general  or  particular,"  he  affirmed  two  years 
later,  "  the  comparison  of  our  governments  with  those  of 
Europe,  is  like  a  comparison  of  heaven  and  hell."  J 

Franklin,  like  Jefferson,  was  in  France  the  greater 
part  of  this  period,  and  therefore  may  not  have  been  so 
keenly  alive  to  the  distresses  among  the  states  as  those 
at  home.  But  he  had  a  juster  appreciation  of  their 
resources  and  of  the  nature  of  their  troubles.  In  a 


*  Washington  to   Samuel  Hanson,  Jan.  18,  1789;   9  Washington's 
Works,  464. 

t  1  Jefferson's  Works,  427. 
$  2  Jefferson's  Works,  249. 


64  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

pamphlet,  issued  in  1784,  on  "  The  Internal  State  of 
America,"  he  examined  the  complaints  of  American 
newspapers  regarding  hard  times,  deadness  of  trade, 
scarcity  of  money,  and  the  like.  Admitting  these,  he 
could  not  believe  the  prospect  was  so  gloomy  as  had 
been  imagined.  The  great  business  of  the  country,  he 
said,  was  agriculture.  For  one  artisan  or  merchant 
there  were  at  least  one  hundred  farmers,  most  of  whom 
were  cultivators  of  their  own  fertile  lands,  from  which 
they  obtained  not  only  food  but  materials  of  their  cloth- 
ing, so  that  they  needed  very  few  foreign  supplies. 
Although  the  crops  of  the  year  before  had  been  gener- 
ally good,  never  was  the  farmer  better  paid  for  his  sur- 
plus. His  land  was  continually  rising  in  value  with 
increase  of  population,  and  he  was  enabled  to  give  such 
good  wages  to  those  who  worked  for  him  that  in  no  part 
of  the  old  world  were  the  laboring  poor  so  well  fed,  well 
clothed,  well  lodged,  and  well  paid,  as  in  the  United 
States.  In  cities  since  the  Revolution  houses  and  lots 
had  vastly  increased  in  value.  Rents  had  risen  to  an 
astonishing  height,  which  encouraged  building,  thus 
giving  employment  to  abundance  of  workmen.  These 
workmen  demanded  and  obtained  better  wages  than  any 
other  part  of  the  world  afforded  them,  and  were  paid  in 
ready  money.  As  to  the  fisheries,  they  were  not  worse 
paid  than  before  the  He  volution.  Merchants  might 
calculate  amiss  and  import  too  much,  but  they  would 
learn  by  experience.  If  artificers  and  farmers  would 
turn  shopkeepers  with  the  idea  of  leading  easier  lives, 
the  business  might  very  well  be  too  small  for  so  many, 
and  they  might  complain  that  trade  was  dead.  As  to  the 
growth  of  luxury  which  alarmed  so  many,  if  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  luxuries  could  ruin  a  people  the  states 


THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD.  65 

would  have  been  ruined  long  ago;  for  the  British  nation 
had  claimed  aright  and  practiced  it,  of  importing  among 
them,  not  only  the  superfluities  of  their  own  products, 
but  those  of  every  nation  under  heaven.  The  states 
bought  and  consumed  them  and  yet  flourished  and  grew 
rich.  At  present  these  independent  governments  might 
do  what  they  could  not  then  —  discourage  by  heavy 
duties  or  prevent  by  heavy  prohibitions  such  importa- 
tions and  thereby  grow  richer.  Let  the  states  attend  to 
agriculture  and  the  fisheries,  and  the  power  of  rivals 
with  all  their  restraining  and  prohibiting  acts  could  not 
much  hurt  them.* 

To  Hartley  he  wrote;  "All  the  stories  in  your  papers 
relating  to  their  divisions  are  fictions,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  people  being  discontented  with  Congressional  gov- 
ernment. Mr.  Jay  writes  to  me  that  they  were  at  no 
time  more  happy  or  more  satisfied.  ...  In  truth, 
the  freedom  of  their  exports  to  all  nations  has  brought 
in  a  vast  plenty  of  foreign  goods,  and  occasioned  a 
demand  for  their  produce,  the  consequence  of  which 
is  the  double  advantage  of  buying  what  they  consume 
cheap  and  selling  what  they  can  spare  dear."  f  To  the 
Amsterdam  banker,  Mr.  Grand,  he  wrote  after  his  return 
to  Philadelphia  :  "  By  their  accounts  [i.  e.  in  English 
papers]  you  would  think  we  were  in  the  utmost  distress, 
in  want  of  everything,  all  in  confusion,  no  government, 
and  wishing  again  for  that  of  England.  Be  assured, 
my  friend,  that  these  are  all  fictions,  mere  English 
wishes,  not  American  realities.  ...  I  never  saw 
greater  and  more  indubitable  marks  of  public  prosperity 

*  9  Franklin's  Works,  35  et  seq.    See  also  10  Franklin's  Works,  69. 
t  Franklin  to  David  Hartley,  Jan.  3,  1785;  9  Franklin's  Works,  74. 
See  also  Letter  of  Feb.  24, 1786,  ib.  294. 


66  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

in  any  country.  The  produce  of  our  agriculture  bears  a 
good  price,  and  is  all  paid  for  in  ready  hard  money,  all 
the  laboring  people  have  high  wages,  everybody  is  well 
clothed  and  well  lodged,  the  poor  provided  for  or  assisted, 
and  all  estates  in  town  or  country  much  increased  in 
value."  * 


*  Franklin  to  Mr.  Grand,  March  5, 1786;  9  Franklin's  Works,  299. 
See  also  ib.  300,  348 ;  vol.  x,  63-70,  et  passim. 

"  In  the  Hist.  Mag.  March,  1871,  there  is  a  letter  by  H.  B.  Dawson  to 
J.  L.  Motley,  in  response  to  some  statements  of  that  historian  in  the 
London  Times  in  1861,  in  which  most  of  the  symptoms  of  content  during 
the  Confederation  days,  which  could  be  gleaned,  are  grouped  together  to 
point  an  argument."  7  Winsor,  221,  note. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   TARIFF   OF    1789,   AND   HAMILTON'S   REPORT   ON 
MANUFACTURES. 

The  first  Congress  of  the  United  States  under  the 
Constitution  met  in  New  York  City,  March  4,  1789.  A 
quorum  of  the  House  did  not  appear,  however,  until 
April  1,  and  of  the  Senate  not  until  April  6.  April  8, 
three  weeks  before  Washington  was  inaugurated,  the 
House  took  up,  as  the  first  business  of  the  new  govern- 
ment, the  subject  of  an  impost.  The  matter  was  brought 
forward  by  Madison,  who  introduced  the  measure  of  1783 
in  blank,  with  the  suggestion  of  an  additional  clause  for 
discriminating  tonnage  duties,  and  recommended  a  gen- 
eral adherence  to  that  plan.  After  a  debate  lasting  five 
weeks,  a  bill  was  passed,  May  16,  retaining  the  five  per 
cent  ad  valorem  rate  of  1783  for  the  great  majority  of 
articles,  but  considerably  enlarging  the  enumerated  list. 
The  specific  duties  were  materially  reduced  in  the  Senate, 
and  after  numerous  conferences,  the  House  for  the  most 
part  yielded.  The  bill  received  the  President's  signature 
July  4,  1789. 

The  bill  on  its  final  passage  in  the  House,  seems  to 
have  been  agreed  to  without  a  division,  though  after  a 
sharp  struggle  over  many  of  the  items.  The  Senate 

(67) 


68  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

debates  have  not  been  preserved,*  but  the  duties  pro- 
posed by  the  House  were  modified  on  the  general  prin- 
ciple of  securing  as  much  revenue  as  possible,  and  on 
the  ground  that  too  high  duties  would  encourage  smug- 
gling. In  the  House  the  debates  ranged  over  the  whole 
ground  of  tariffs  and  protective  duties,  and  almost  every 
question  that  has  since  come  up  in  tariff  discussion  was 
touched  upon.  There  was  little  of  the  intensity  which 
marked  later  tariff  struggles,  and  the  rates  which  were 
fought  over  were  small  as  compared  with  more  modern 
tariffs.  The  responsibility  of  launching  the  new  gov- 
ernment, in  the  face  of  confident  predictions  of  failure, 
and  the  pressing  need  of  a  revenue,  moderated  to  an 
unusual  degree  the  zeal  of  opposing  interests.  The  dif- 
ferences between  sections  of  the  Union  did  not  prove  so 
great  or  so  formidable  as  had  been  anticipated.  This 
first  Congress,  which  it  was  freely  predicted  would 
strangle  the  new  government,  really  breathed  into  it  the 
breath  of  life,f  and  the  tariff  of  1789,  which  foreshad- 
owed the  policy  of  a  hundred  years  to  come,  was 
launched  with  astonishingly  little  friction.  The  senti- 
ment for  free  trade,  and  the  desirability  of  planting  the 
nation  on  the  principles  of  greater  freedom  from  com- 

*  But  Bee  "  Sketches  of  Debate  in  the  First  Senate  of  the  United 
States,"  by  William  Maclay;  edited  by  George  W.  Harris.  (Enlarged 
edition  published  by  Appleton  in  1890  under  title  of  "  Journal  of  William 
Maclay.")  Maclay  was  the  short-term  senator  from  Pennsylvania,  and 
his  journal,  covering  a  period  of  two  years,  contains  the  only  connected 
account  of  the  Senate  discussions  that  has  come  down  to  us.  He 
reports  no  speeches,  but  gives  a  strong  picture  of  the  tone  and  general 
drift  of  discussion.  Maclay  was  a  rather  extreme  republican,  with 
little  faith  in  the  new  Constitution,  who  abhorred  Adams  and  Hamil- 
ton, disparaged  Washington,  distrusted  Madison,  and  apparently  saw 
no  signs  of  leadership  in  Jefferson. 

t  See  Annals  of  Congress,  vol.  i,  page  309. 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  69 

mercial  restrictions,  was  voiced  by  Madison,  who  took 
his  argument,  as  Fisher  Ames  said,  direct  from  Adam 
Smith.*  Yet  these  views,  cautiously  as  they  were  ex- 
pressed, had  little  effect  other  than  to  give  their  author 
a  reputation  for  bookishness  and  want  of  practical 
sagacity,  f 

But  even  Madison  had  little  conception  of  laissez-faire 
as  a  principle  of  economic  life,  and  in  its  application  he 
stopped  far  short  of  the  conclusions  of  the  school  of 
Ricardo  and  Mill.  Reciprocity  he  earnestly  advocated, 
but  he  did  not  conceive  that  one  nation,  particularly  the 
United  States,  could  adopt  free  trade  independently  of 
other  nations.  Indeed,  it  remained  for  him  to  give  the 
only  broad  argument  for  protection  heard  during  the 
debate.  Madison  was  eminently  a  conservative.  He 
spoke  with  power,  vigor,  and  directness,  but  rarely  with 
enthusiasm  or  abandon.  His  theories  never  led  him  far 
away  from  practical  considerations,  and  he  stood  ready 
to  have  his  position  modified  by  new  facts  and  phases; 
and  for  this  he  was  termed  vacillating  by  those  who 
understood  him  least.  He  expressed  himself  strongly  at 
times  against  what  he  considered  a  speculative  rage  for 
manufactures,  and  in  favor  of  a  larger  commercial  free- 
dom. But  he  never  ventured  to  base  the  offer  of  free 
trade  upon  other  terms  than  reciprocity.  While  some- 
what jealous  of  manufactures,  he  freely  conceded  their 
necessity  to  a  certain  extent,  and  stoutly  maintained  the 
propriety  and  duty  of  Congressional  assistance  and 
direction.  Under  changed  conditions  he  would  have 
been  the  sturdiest  opponent  of  a  protective  tariff,  but 


*  1  Life  of  Fisher  Ames,  49. 
1 1  Life  of  Fisher  Ames,  35. 


70  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

the  logic  of  events  made  him  more  and  more  a  defender 
and  advocate,  though  he  never  ceased  to  retain  his  theo- 
retical feeling  for  free  trade.* 

The  argument  for  protection  was  hlunt  and  practical. 
Manufactures  already  established  should  not  be  allowed 
to  go  down;  especially  in  those  states  where  legislative 
aid  had  been  granted.  These  states,  argued  Madison, 
had  surrendered  this  power  to  the  general  government 
in  the  confident  expectation  that  the  protecting  arm 
would  not  be  withdrawn.  The  country  ought  to  be 
independent  of  foreign  countries  for  supplies,  and  this 
could  be  accomplished  by  extending  the  aid  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  certain  industries  for  which  the  country  was 
well  adapted.  The  general  answer  was  equally  blunt 
and  innocent  of  abstract  reasoning.  Certain  sections  of 
the  country,  particularly  the  south,  were  not  interested 
in  manufactures  and  were  interested  in  foreign  markets 
for  their  produce;  protective  duties  would  bear  heavily 
and  unequally  against  them.  Madison's  maxims  regard- 
ing an  ideal  commercial  relation  probably  found  little 
response;  no  more  did  the  opponents  of  the  tariff  grant 
that  in  the  end  all  parts  of  the  country  shared  equally 
in  the  benefits  of  protective  duties.  Tucker  and  Smith 
of  South  Carolina,  and  Bland,  Parker,  and  the  Lees  of 
Virginia,!  who  mainly  represented  the  Southern  hostil- 
ity to  imports  for  other  than  revenue  purposes,  con- 
tented themselves  with  pointing  out  the  depression  of 
agriculture  in  their  respective  states,  and  the  burdens 
which  protective  tariffs  would  impose  upon  them.  How- 
ever, they  expressed  themselves  as  willing  to  stand  their 
share  of  loss,  and  to  grant  some  encouragement  to  the 

*  Sea  his  annual  message,  1815 ;  also  3  Works,  158-161,  et  passim. 
t  Senator  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  Representative  Richard  Bland  Lee. 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  71 

manufacturing  interests,  though  protesting  that  it  was  a 
clear  concession  on  their  part,  and  that  the  burdens 
would  be  unequally  distributed.*  They  were  by  no 
means  consistent  free-traders,  as  the  term  would  have 
been  understood  later,  and  were  quite  willing  that  their 
own  local  productions  should  share  in  the  protection 
accorded  to  the  industries  of  the  North.  There  was  as 
yet  no  organized  movement  on  either  side  and  no  pow- 
erful interest,  save  that  of  commerce,  needing  to  be 
conciliated.  There  was  no  union  of  protected  interests 
whereby  all  should  stand  or  fall  together,  and  in  the  dis- 
cussion over  details,  local  interests  had  a  pretty  free 
expression.  Fitzsimons  of  Pennsylvania  did,  indeed, 
urge  Tucker  of  South  Carolina  to  get  rid  of  local  consid- 
erations, declaring  that  unless  such  considerations  were 
dropped  every  State  would  feel  itself  oppressed  by  the 
duty  on  particular  articles,  whereas  when  the  whole 
system  was  perfected  the  burden  would  be  equal  on  all.  f 
Yet  Fitzsimons,  who  especially  wanted  candles  pro- 
tected, was  quite  indifferent  in  regard  to  nails,  a  dis- 
tinctively Eastern  manufacture,  and  positively  opposed 


*  See  remarks  of  Tucker,  Annals  of  Congress,  vol.  i,  p.  308.  Not  all 
were  so  moderate.  Thus  in  the  Senate,  Grayson  of  Virginia  declared 
against  all  impost  as  the  most  unjust  and  oppressive  mode  of  taxation ; 
and  Pierce  Butler  of  South  Carolina,  who  did  not  take  his  seat  until 
June,  signalized  his  appearance  by  arraigning  the  whole  impost  law  and 
charging  Congress  with  a  design  of  oppressing  South  Carolina.  In  the 
debate  on  drawbacks,  "  Butler  flamed  away,"  says  Maclay,  "  and 
threatened  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  with  regard  to  his  state,  as  sure 
as  God  was  in  the  firmament.  He  scattered  his  remarks  over  the  whole 
impost  bill,  calling  it  partial,  oppressive,  etc.,  and  solely  calculated  to 
oppress  South  Carolina  .  .  .  His  State  would  live  free,  or  die  glori- 
ous, etc.,  etc."  See  Sketches  of  Debate  in  the  First  Senate,  pp.  64,  75, 
77. 

t  II.  R.,  April  15, 1789;  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  vol.  i,  p.  155. 


72  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

to  any  tax  on  hemp,  though  the  only  one  which  seemed 
directly  to  favor  the  South.  Ames  of  Massachusetts, 
who  expressed  himself  as  uniformly  desirous  of  encour- 
aging manufactures,  persistently  fought  the  tax  on 
molasses,  and,  in  general,  the  New  England  members 
united  to  oppose  duties  bearing  against  their  section. 
Bland  and  Parker  of  Virginia  were  quite  willing  to  have 
a  duty  on  coal,  because  Virginia  had  mines  that  might 
be  worked  to  advantage,  and  they  asked  for  three  cents 
per  bushel.  Hartley  of  Pennsylvania,  one  of  the  leading 
advocates  of  protection,  grudgingly  conceded  one  cent 
per  bushel,  but  for  hemp  he  would  have  a  bounty  rather 
than  a  tariff. 

After  all,  the  debate  followed  other  lines  than  those  of 
protection  and  free  trade.*  Various  sections  were  alive 
to  the  interests  of  various  manufactures,  but  these  inter- 
ests were  neither  large  nor  powerful.  Agriculture  was 
tacitly  assumed  to  be  the  great  and  controlling  occupa- 
tion of  the  people,  and  perhaps  no  one  looked  to  see  any 
very  extensive  manufacturing  in  the  country.  Fisher 
Ames'  picture  of  the  children  making  nails  around  the 
household  forges  on  long  winter  evenings,  perhaps  sug- 
gests correctly  enough  the  prevailing  conception  of  the 
kind  of  manufacturing  activity  protection  would  foster,  f 
Manufactures  were  treated  with  respect  and  consider- 
ation, and  the  constitutional  question  seems  not  even  to 
have  been  suggested.!  Manufacturing  interests  were 

*  "If  the  duties  should  be  raised  too  high,  the  error  will  proceed  as 
much  from  the  popular  ardor  to  throw  the  burden  of  revenue  on  trade 
as  from  the  premature  policy  of  stimulating  manufactures."  Madison 
to  Edmund  Pendleton,  April  19, 1789  j  1  Madison's  Works,  465. 

t  See  infra,  p.  84. 

t  The  constitutional  question,  however,  appeared  in  another  form. 
Some  of  the  members,  notably  the  senators  from  Virginia,  had  been 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  73 

allowed  to  monopolize  a  good  part  of  the  debate,  but  it 
was  not  supposed  that  they  were  speedily  to  become 
very  large,  or  seriously  to  interfere  with  importations 
from  abroad.  Revenue  was  the  principal  consideration; 
and  the  powerful  commercial  interest,  while  not  un- 
friendly to  manufactures,  instinctively  and  successfully 
opposed  any  tendency  toward  rates  which  would  seem 
to  threaten  a  diminution  of  foreign  trade.*  ' 

In  opening  the  tariff  discussion,  Madison  reminded 
the  House  that  the  subject  was  one  of  the  greatest  mag- 
nitude, and  required  their  first  and  united  exertions. 
Every  one  knew  the  impotency  of  the  last  Congress. 
The  Union,  by  establishing  a  more  effective  government, 
and  having  recovered  from  its  former  imbecility,  ought, 
in  its  first  act,  to  revive  those  principles  of  honor  and 
honesty  that  had  too  long  lain  dormant.  The  deficiency 
in  the  treasury  was  too  notorious  to  need  mention.  Let 
Congress  content  itself  with  remedying  the  evil.  To  do 
this  a  national  revenue  must  be  obtained,  and  by  a 

elected  by  the  anti-federal  party  and  rather  in  the  spirit  of  continuing 
the  opposition.  These,  hardly  as  yet  accepting  the  new  government  as 
a  finality,  denounced  the  Constitution  itself  rather  than  its  interpreta- 
tion. Thus  in  the  later  debates  on  the  assumption  of  the  state  debts, 
Maclay  reports  Bland  of  Virginia  as  supporting  assumption  with  the 
avowed  design,  as  he  said,  of  showing  to  the  world,  that  the  present 
constitution  aimed  directly  at  consolidation,  and  the  sooner  everybody 
knew  it  the  better.  See  Sketches  of  Debate  in  the  First  Senate,  p.  17y. 

*  "  The  senators  from  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Maryland, 
in  every  act,  seemed  desirous  of  making  the  impost  productive,  both  as 
to  revenue,  and  effective  for  the  encouragement  of  manufactures ;  and 
seemed  to  consider  the  whole  of  the  imposts  (salt  excepted)  much  too 
low.  Articles  of  luxury,  many  of  tLem  would  have  raised  one  half. 
But  the  members  both  from  the  North  and,  still  more  particularly,  from 
the  South,  were  ever  in  a  flame  when  any  articles  were  brought  forward 
that  were  in  any  considerable  use  among  them."  Sketches  of  Debate, 
77. 


74  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

system  which,  while  securing  revenue,  should  not  he 
oppressive.  Two  points  concerned  them:  First,  the 
general  regulation  of  commerce,  which,  in  Madison's 
opinion,  ought  to  be  as  free  as  the  policy  of  nations 
would  admit;  and  secondly,  revenue.  Since  they  were 
without  the  necessary  data  on  which  to  base  a  perma- 
nent system,  and  as  the  situation  would  admit  of  no 
delay,  he  would  propose  such  articles  only  as  would 
occasion  the  least  difficulty.  The  proposed  measure  of 
1783  had  received  the  assent  of  all  the  states  in  some 
form,  and  should  be  taken  as  a  basis  for  a  new  tariff.* 

It  is  barely  possible  that,  had  the  government  been 
fully  organized,  the  tariff  of  1783  would  have  been 
immediately  enacted  as  a  temporary  measure,  though 
no  doubt  against  the  protest  of  those  states  which  were 
then  collecting  considerably  higher  rates,  f  The  failure 
of  the  Confederatitn  to  secure  the  adtptitn  of  its  pro- 
posed tariff  in  any  acceptable  form  had  discouraged 
further  efforts  to  raise  a  revenue.  After  putting  the 
machinery  in  motion  for  action  upon  the  proposed  Con- 
stitution the  old  Congress  practically  ceased  to  exist, 
though  its  sittings  were  continued  even  after  the  new 
Congress  had  met.  The  interval  was  one  of  great  trial 
and  uncertainty.  When  the  ratification  of  the  Consti- 
tution by  the  requisite  number  of  states  was  known,  the 
necessary  steps  were  taken  as  promptly  as  circumstances 
would  permit,  and  the  first  meeting  of  Congress  ap- 
pointed at  this  unfavorable  season  of  the  year  in  order, 

*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  107. 

t  That  Congress  would  lay  an  impost  was  well  understood.  The  North 
Carolina  Convention,  in  adjourning  without  action  on  the  Constitution, 
in  August,  1788,  declared  that  as  the  new  Congress  would  probably  lay 
an  impost,  they  recommended  North  Carolina  to  lay  a  similar  impost 
and  to  appropriate  the  proceeds  to  the  use  of  Congress.  (7  Winsor,  251.) 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  75 

as  Madison  explained,  to  take  advantage  of  the  spring 
importations.*  But  as  the  time  dragged  wearily  by,  first 
without  a  quorum  in  either  House,  then  waiting  for  the 
inauguration  of  Washington,  the  prospect  of  getting  any 
revenue  from  the  spring  trade  vanished,!  and  the  debate 
once  launched  was  soon  under  such  headway  that  it 
could  not  be  readily  stopped.  { 

When  Madison  concluded  his  opening  speech  by  pro- 
posing the  measure  of  1783,  Boudinot  of  New  Jersey 
promptly  moved  that  the  blanks  be  filled  up  with  the 
rates  of  1783.  Objection  followed  from  various  quarters. 
Lawrence  of  New  York  objected  to  any  specific  duties  at 
that  time  because  they  had  not  materials  for  even  the 
basis  of  a  system.  Fitzsimons  would  go  further  than  a 
temporary  system,  and  adopt  one  adequate  to  the  sit- 
uation regarding  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  com- 
merce. White  of  Virginia  fea-red  such  a  course  would 
consume  too  much  time  and  lose  a  greater  sum  than  the 
additional  impost  would  yield.  Tucker  of  South  Car- 
olina thought  a  permanent  system  would  be  most  likely 
to  be  satisfactory  to  their  constituents,  but  a  temporary 
system  might  be  expedient  and  he  would  have  no  objec- 
tion to  an  ad  valorem  rate  as  proposed  in  1783.  As  to 

*  1  Madison's  Works,  459 ;  see  also  ib.,  453. 

t  The  impatient  Fisher  Anies  wrote  to  Minot,  March  25, 1789 :  "  We 
lose  £1000  a  day  revenue.  We  lose  credit,  spirit,  everything.  The 
public  will  forget  the  government  before  it  is  born.  The  resurrection 
of  the  infant  will  come  before  its  birth.  Happily,  however,  the  federal 
interest  is  strong  in  Congress.  The  old  Congress  still  continues  to  meet 
and  it  seems  to  be  doubtful  whether  the  old  government  is  dead,  or  the 
new  one  alive."  1  Life  of  Fisher  Ames,  32. 

J  "The  plan  of  a  hasty  and  temporary  impost  loses  ground  daily  from 
the  apparent  impracticability  of  reaping  the  spring  harvest  from  impor- 
tations;" Madison  to  Randolph,  April  12,  1789  (1  Madison's  Works, 
463).  Even  Madison  was  obliged  to  admit  that  the  plan  of  1783  was 
inadmissible  without  alteration  on  some  points ;  ib.  467. 


76  THE  TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

tonnage,  lie  asked  for  delay  until  other  representatives 
from  the  South  should  arrive. 

At  this  point  Hartley  of  Pennsylvania  made  the  first 
appeal  in  behalf  of  manufactures.  He  objected  to  enter- 
ing into  the  subject  in  a  limited  and  partial  manner, 
but  would  do  it  on  as  broad  a  bottom  as  practicable. 
Tucker's  point  regarding  tonnage  might  have  some 
weight,  but  no  argument  of  that  sort  should  discourage 
the  House  from  taking  such  measures  as  would  tend  to 
protect  and  promote  domestic  manufactures.  "  I  think 
it  both  politic  and  just  that  the  fostering  hand  of  the 
general  government  should  extend  to  all  those  manufac- 
tures which  will  tend  to  national  utility.  I  am  there- 
fore sorry  that  gentlemen  seem  to  fix  their  mind  to  so 
early  a  period  as  1783;  for  we  very  well  know  our  cir- 
cumstances are  much  changed  since  that  time.  .•  We  had 
then  but  few  manufactures  among  us,  and  the  vast 
quantities  of  goods  that  flowed  in  upon  us  from  Europe, 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  rendered  these  few  almost 
useless;  since  then  we  have  been  forced  by  necessity  and 
various  other  causes,  to  increase  our  domestic  manufac- 
tures to  such  a  degree  as  to  be  able  to  furnish  some  in 
sufficient  quantity  to  answer  the  consumption  of  the 
whole  Union,  while  others  are  daily  growing  into  im- 
portance. Our  stock  of  materials  is,  in  many  instances, 
equal  to  the  greatest  demand,  and  our  artisans  sufficient 
to  work  them  up  even  for  exportation.  In  these  cases  I 
take  it  to  be  the  policy  of  every  enlightened  nation  to 
give  their  manufactures  that  degree  of  encouragement 
necessary  to  perfect  them,  without  oppressing  the  other 
parts  of  the  community."  * 

*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  114,  115  (April  9).  For  confirmation  of 
statement  as  to  progress  of  manufactures,  see  remarks  of  Madison,  ib.,  248. 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  77 

Madison  again  urged  immediate  action  from  consid- 
erations of  revenue.  The  general  interest,  he  declared, 
must  be  considered,  and  any  system  must  be  founded 
on  the  principles  of  mutual  concession.  Those  states 
most  advanced  in  population  and  ripe  for  manufactures, 
ought  to  have  their  interests  attended  to  in  some  degree. 
By  adopting  the  Constitution  they  had  thrown  the 
power  of  regulating  trade  out  of  their  hands,  and  doubt- 
less with  the  expectation  that  these  interests  would  not 
be  neglected  by  the  national  government.  "  I  own 
myself,"  he  said,  "  the  friend  to  a  very  free  system  of 
commerce,  and  hold  it  as  a  truth,  that  commercial 
shackles  are  generally  unjust,  oppressive,  and  impolitic. 
It  is  also  a  truth  that  if  industry  and  labor  are  left  to 
take  their  own  course,  they  will  generally  be  directed  to 
those  objects  which  are  the  most  productive,  and  this  in 
a  more  certain  and  direct  manner  than  the  wisdom  of 
the  most  enlightened  legislature  could  point  out.  Nor 
do  I  think  that  the  national  interest  is  more  promoted 
by  such  restrictions  than  that  the  interests  of  individuals 
would  be  promoted  by  legislative  interference  directing 
the  particular  application  of  its  industry.  .  .  .  For 
example,  it  would  be  of  no  advantage  to  the  shoemaker 
to  make  his  own  clothes  to  save  the  expense  of  the 
tailor's  bill,  nor  to  the  tailor  to  make  his  own  shoes  to 
save  the  expense  of  procuring  them  from  the  shoemaker. 
It  would  be  better  policy  to  suffer  each  of  them  to  em- 
ploy his  talents  in  his  own  way.  The  case  is  the  same 
between  the  exercise  of  the  arts  and  agriculture,  between 
the  city  and  the  country,  and  between  the  city  and  the 
town;  each  capable  of  making  particular  articles  in 
abundance  to  supply  the  other;  thus  all  are  benefited  by 
exchange,  and  the  less  this  exchange  is  cramped  by  gov- 


78  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

ernment,  the  greater  are  the  proportions  of  benefit  to 
each.  The  same  argument  holds  good  between  nation 
and  nation,  and  between  parts  of  the  same  nation." 

To  .this  unequivocal  enunciation  of  the  conclusions  of 
the  Wealth  of  Nations,  Madison  hastened  to  add  that 
there  were  exceptions,  important  in  themselves,  and 
which  claimed  the  particular  attention  of  Congress.  "  If 
my  general  principle  is  a  good  one,  that  commerce  ought 
to  be  free,  and  labor  and  industry  left  at  large  to  find  its 
proper  object,  the  only  thing  which  remains  will  be  to 
discover  the  exceptions.  .  .  .  Although  the  freedom 
of  commerce  would  be  advantageous  to  the  world,  yet  in 
some  particulars  one  nation  might  suffer  to  benefit 
others,  and  this  ought  to  be  for  the  general  good  of 
society.  If  America  were  to  leave  her  ports  perfectly 
free  and  make  no  discrimination  between  vessels 
owned  by  her  citizens  and  those  owned  by  for- 
eigners, while  other  nations  make  this  discrimination, 
it  is  obvious  that  such  a  policy  would  go  to  exclude 
American  shipping  altogether  from  foreign  ports.  .  .  . 
By  encouraging  the  means  of-  transporting  our  prod- 
ucts, we  encourage  the  raising  of  them.  .  .  .  Duties 
on  imports  may  have  an  effect  which  comes  within  the 
idea  of  national  prudence.  It  may  happen  that  mate- 
rials for  manufacture  may  grow  up  without  encourage- 
ment for  this  purpose;  it  has  been  the  case  in  some  of 
the  states,  but  in  others,  regulations  have  been  provided 
and  have  succeeded  in  producing  some  establishments 
which  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  perish.  ...  It 
would  be  cruel  to  neglect  them  and  divert  their  industry 
to  other  channels;  for  it  is  not  possible  for  the  hand  of 
man  to  shift  from  one  employment  to  another  without 
being  injured  by  the  change."  Another  exception,  Mad- 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  79 

ison  said,  would  be  an  embargo  in  time  of  war.  Another 
which  had  been  argued  with  great  plausibility,  namely, 
that  each  nation  should  have  within  itself  the  means  of 
defence,  independent  of  foreign  supplies,  he  thought  had 
been  carried  too  far,  although  there  might  be  some  truth 
in  it.* 

Later  in  the  debate,  in  reply  to  Lawrence  of  New 
York,  who  insisted  that  the  United  States  was  not  in  a 
condition  to  engage  in  commercial  war,  and  who  wanted 
commerce  let  alone, f  Madison  committed  himself  more 
unreservedly  to  government  interference  with  industry. 
'I  am  a  friend  of  free  commerce/  he  said,  'and  at  the 
same  time  a  friend  to  such  regulations  as  are  calculated 
to  promote  our  own  interest,  and  this  on  national  prin- 
ciples. ...  I  wish  we  were  under  less  necessity 
than  I  find  we  are,  to  shackle  our  commerce  with  duties, 
restrictions,  and  preferences  ;  but  there  are  cases  in 
which  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  following  the  example  of 
other  nations  in  the  great  diversity  of  our  trade.  .  .  . 
Although  interest  will,  in  general,  operate  effectually  to 
produce  political  good,  yet  there  are  causes  in  which 
certain  factitious  circumstances  may  divert  it  from  its 
natural  channel,  or  throw  or  retain  it  in  an  unnatural 
one.  Have  we  not  been  exercised  on  this  topic  for  a 
long  time  past  ?  Or  why  has  it  been  necessary  to  give 
encouragement  to  particular  species  of  industry,  but  to 
turn  the  stream  in  favor  of  an  interest  that  would  not 
otherwise  succeed  ?  But  laying  aside  the  illustration  of 
these  causes,  so  well  known  to  all  nations  where  cities, 


*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  115-118  (H.  R.  April  9, 1789). 

t  See  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  211,  243.  The  question  was  as  to  a 
discriminating  tonnage  duty.  Madison  had  no  fears,  he  said,  as  to  the 
results  of  entering  into  a  commercial  war  with  Great  Britain,  ib.  248. 


80  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

companies,  or  opulent  individuals  engross  the  business 
from  others,  by  having  had  an  uninterrupted  possession 
of  it,  or  by  the  extent  of  their  capitals  being  able  to 
destroy  a  competition,  let  us  proceed  to  examine  what 
ought  to  be  our  conduct  on  this  principle,  upon  the 
present  occasion.  Suppose  two  commercial  cities,  one 
possessed  of  enormous  capitals  and  long  habits  of  bus- 
iness, whilst  the  other  is  possessed  of  superior  natural 
advantages,  but  without  that  course  of  business  and 
chain  of  connections  which  the  other  has;  is  it  possible 
in  the  nature  of  things,  that  the  latter  city  should  carry 
on  a  successful  competition  with  the  former  ?  Thus  it 
is  with  nations;  and  when  we  consider  the  vast  quanti- 
ties of  our  produce  sent  to  the  different  parts  of  Europe 
and  the  great  exportations  from  the  same  places,  that 
almost  all  of  this  great  commerce  is  transacted  through 
the  medium  of  British  ships  and  British  merchants,  I 
cannot  help  conceiving  that  from  the  force  of  habit  and 
other  conspiring  causes,  that  nation  is  in  possession  of 
a  much  greater  portion  of  our  trade  than  she  is  natur- 
ally entitled  to.  Trade,  then,  being  restrained  to  an 
artificial  channel  is  not  so  advantageous  to  America  as 
a  direct  intercourse  would  be;  it  becomes,  therefore,  the 
duty  of  those  to  whose  care  the  public  interest  and  wel- 
fare are  committed,  to  turn  the  tide  to  a  more  favorable 
direction/  * 

The  debates  as  reported  give  little  evidence  of  further 
abstract  discussion  of  the  general  principles  of  protec- 
tion and  free  trade,  f  In  the  arrangement  of  details, 
however,  great  diversity  of  views  was  discovered,  rang- 
ing from  Fitzsimons'  maxim  that  whatever  operated  to 

*  1  Annals  of  the  1st  Congress,  192,  193  (H.  R.  April  21,  1789). 
f  But  see  supra,  71  (note). 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  81 

benefit  one  part  of  the  Union  would  eventually  benefit 
the  whole,  to  Eland's  assertion  that  in  the  then  condi- 
tion of  manufacturing  in  America  they  would  certainly 
be  laying  a  tax  upon  the  whole  community  in  order  to 
put  money  into  the  pockets  of  the  few. 

The  items  which  occasioned  most  difficulty  were 
molasses  and  rum,  wines,  salt,  steel,  nails,  candles,  hemp, 
and  tonnage. 

On  molasses  a  tax  of  eight  cents  per  gallon  was  pro- 
posed. Ames,  who  violently  opposed  this,  explained 
that  his  constituents  exchanged  for  molasses  the  fish 
which  they  could  not  dispose  of  anywhere  else.  It 
would  be  scarcely  possible  to  maintain  their  fisheries  if 
the  market  for  summer  fish  were  injured,  and  a  tax  of 
eight  cents  would  carry  devastation  throughout  all  the 
New  England  States,  and  would  ultimately  affect  all  the 
Union.  "  Will  gentlemen  who  declare  themselves  the 
friends  of  manufactures,"  he  exclaimed,  "support  the 
opinion  that  a  raw  material  ought  to  be  saddled  with  an 
excessive  duty,  that  the  imposition  should  be  at  a  higher 
rate  than  what  is  laid  upon  manufactured  articles?" 
He  would  have  a  low  duty  on  molasses  and  an  excise  on 
rum.  He  insisted  that  not  much  more  than  three- 
fourths  as  much  rum  was  distilled  in  Massachusetts  as 
formerly,  that  the  nations  which  used  to  supply  them 
with  raw  material  were  becoming  their  rivals,  and  that 
even  the  home  market  was  not  secured  to  them.  He 
reiterated  his  belief  that  the  proposed  tax  would  ruin 
the  rum  manufacturing  industry.  Thatcher  of  Massa- 
chusetts declared  that  six  cents  on  molasses  would  be 
as  great  a  burden  on  Massachusetts  as  fifty  dollars  a 
slave  would  be  in  the  South.  Parker  thought  a  higher 
tax  on  rum  would  be  a  good  thing  because  it  would  dis- 


82  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

courage  its  use;  Lawrence  wanted  a  low  duty  because  it 
was  a  necessity  to  the  poor.  Fitzsimons  brought  for- 
ward his  maxim  that  each  particular  duty  must  be 
regarded  as  a  part  of  a  system  bearing  equally  upon 
all.  He  would  support  the  molasses  tax,  but  moved  a 
corresponding  drawback  on  all  distilled  rum  exported. 
Madison  opposed  this  as  opening  the  door  for  frauds  on 
the  revenue;  but  Fitzsimons  insisted  that  otherwise  the 
manufacturer  would  be  greatly  injured.  Bland  predicted 
that  if  a  duty  of  fifty  cents  were  laid  on  Madeira  wine  not 
a  gallon  would  be  imported.  Lawrence  affirmed  that  it 
would  encourage  smuggling,  but  was  willing  to  allow 
twenty  cents  a  gallon.  Sinnickson  of  New  Jersey  wanted 
a  prohibitive  duty  on  beer  because  he  thought  the  mate- 
rials could  be  easily  produced  in  the  United  States,  and 
with  such  encouragement  enough  would  be  supplied, 
and  this  would  tend  to  advance  the  agricultural  interest.* 
Fitzsimons  moved  a  duty  of  two  cents  a  pound  on 
candles.  Tucker  objected  that  while  some  states  made 
enough  for  their  own  consumption  others  were  obliged 
to  import,  and  the  tax  would  burden  particular  states. 
Fitzsimons  replied  that  the  manufacture  was  an  import- 
ant one  and  far  on  the  way  toward  perfection.  In  a  few 
years  they  could  supply  the  continent.  Pennsylvania 
had  a  tax  of  two  cents,  and  the  manufacture  had  been 
greatly  encouraged.  Boudinot  declared  that  if  a  small 

*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  134,  139,  140,  143,  145,  180,  231.  On 
molasses  the  amount  finally  fixed  in  the  House  was  five  cents.  The 
Senate  gradually  reduced  this  to  two  and  a  half  cents.  Ames  wrote  to 
Minot,  April  14:  "Another  molasses  battle  has  been  fought.  Like 
modern  victories  it  was  incomplete,  but  we  got  off  one  cent;"  (1  Life 
of  Fisher  Ames.  37).  Jamaica  spirits  were  finally  rated  by  the  Senate  at 
ten  cents  per  gallon ;  all  others  at  eight.  Madeira  wine  was  reduced  from 
thirty -three  and  one-third  cents  to  eighteen  cents ;  all  other  wines  from 
twenty  cents  to  ten. 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  83 

encouragement  were  held  out  by  the  government  candles 
would  soon  be  made  cheaper  than  they  could  be  im- 
ported. Lawrence  thought  that  in  any  event  they 
should  be  taxed  for  revenue.* 

A  duty  of  66  cents  per  112  pounds  was  proposed  on 
steel.  Clymer  of  Pennsylvania  admitted  that  the  man- 
ufacture was  in  its  infancy,  but  as  the  materials  were 
produced  in  almost  all  the  states,  and  the  manufacture 
was  already  established  with  considerable  success,  he 
deemed  it  prudent  to  emancipate  the  country  from  the 
manacles  of  foreign  manufactures.  A  single  furnace  in 
Philadelphia  would,  with  a  little  encouragement,  supply 
enough  for  the  consumption  of  the  Union.  Lee  objected 
to  any  duty,  as  the  consumption  of  steel  was  large  and 
essential  to  agricultural  improvements.  Tucker  thought 
it  impossible  for  some  states  to  obtain  steel  except  by 
importation,  and  that  it  was  more  deserving  of  a  bounty 
than  a  tax.  The  smallest  tax  would  be  a  burden  on 
agriculture,  and  he  was  at  a  loss  to  imagine  with  what 
propriety  gentlemen  could  propose  a  measure  big  with 
oppression  and  tending  to  burden  particular  states.  The 
situation  of  South  Carolina  was  melancholy.  The  state 
was  deeply  in  debt,  and  produce  was  daily  falling  in 
price.  However,  he  would  be  willing  to  grant  a  five  per 
cent  ad  valorem  tax.  Madison  agreed  with  Tucker,  that 
as  the  object  of  the  tax  was  solely  the  encouragement 
of  manufactures  and  not  revenue,  it  would  be  more 
proper  to  give  a  bounty  on  the  manufacture.  The  duty 
would  tend  to  depress  many  mechanic  arts  in  the  pro- 
portion that  it  protected  this,  and  he  thought  it  best  to 
include  it  in  the  five  per  cent  list.  Fitzsimons  main- 


*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  151, 152  (H.  R.  April  15, 1789).    Two  cents 
was  agreed  to  and  remained  the  rate  until  doubled  in  the  war  of  1812. 


84  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

tained  that  the  evils  of  a  small  duty  would  soon  be  over- 
balanced by  the  establishment  of  such  an  important 
manufacture.* 

Fisher  Ames  wanted  nails  protected.  The  manufac- 
ture, he  said,  had  grown  up  with  a  little  encouragement 
to  an  astonishing  degree  of  perfection.  It  had  become 
usual  for  the  country  people  in  Massachusetts  to  erect 
small  forges  in  their  chimney  corners,  and  in  winter 
and  on  evenings  wh.en  little  other  work  could  be  done, 
great  quantities  of  nails  were  made  even  by  children. 
Perhaps  enough  might  be  manufactured  in  this  way  to 
supply  the  continent.  The  business  could  be  prosecuted 
in  a  similar  manner  in  every  state.  Fitzsimons  was  not 
solicitous  about  a  duty.  The  manufacturer  would  have 
little  to  fear,  he  thought,  if  the  legislature  should  decide 
against  him.  The  fact  was,  nails  were  at  that  moment 
made  cheaper  and,  in  the  judgment  of  some,  better  than 
those  coming  from  England.  Before  the  Revolution  the 
Americans  were  not  permitted  to  have  slitting  mills. 
Now  they  had  several  and  were  independent  of  all  the 
world  for  materials  necessary  for  carrying  on  the  bus- 
iness in  the  most  extensive  manner.  Yet  he  was  willing 
to  allow  a  small  duty  because  it  conformed  to  the  policy 
of  the  states  which  thought  it  proper  thus  to  protect 
their  manufactures.  Madison  feared  the  tax  would  in- 
crease the  cost  of  ship-building.  Bland  deemed  the  tax 
unequal,  burdening  the  South  but  not  the  North. 
Tucker  observed  that  from  what  had  been  admitted 
regarding  the  little  expense  and  great  facility  of  man- 

*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  154.  In  the  bill  as  it  finally  passed  un- 
wrought  steel  was  rated  at  56  cents  per  112  pounds,  which,  as  Hamilton 
pointed  out  the  next  year,  was  less  than  five  per  cent  ad  valorem  (2 
Hamilton's  Works,  110). 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  85 

ufacturing  nails,  it  stood  in  no  need  of  encouragement; 
at  least,  five  per  cent  ad  valorem  would  be  sufficient. 
Ames  warned  the  House  against  jumping  to  such  a  con- 
clusion as  Tucker's.  The  commerce  of  America,  he 
said,  particularly  the  southern  parts,  had  by  force  of 
habit  and  English  connections,  been  setting  strong  upon 
the  British  coasts;  it  required  the  aid  of  the  general 
government  to  divert  it  to  a  more  natural  course.  Lay- 
ing a  small  duty  on  foreign  manufactures  might  induce, 
from  motives  of  interest  as  well  as  inclination,  one  cit- 
izen to  barter  with  another  what  he  had  long  been  ac- 
customed to  take  from  strangers.  In  Europe  the  artisan 
was  driven  to  labor  for  his  bread ;  stern  necessity,  with 
her  rod  of  iron,  compelled  his  exertion.  But  in  America 
invitation  and  encouragement  were  necessary;  without 
them  the  infant  manufacture  would  droop,  and  its  patron 
seek  with  success  a  competency  from  the  cheap  and  fer- 
tile soil.* 

Madison  doubted  the  propriety  of  taxing  cordage, 
because  ship-building  itself  was  a  worthy  object  of  leg- 
islative attention.  If,  however,  it  was  necessary  to  lay 
a  duty  on  cordage  in  order  to  make  the  United  States 
independent  of  the  world  as  to  that  article,  it  was  also 
politic  to  endeavor  to  become  alike  independent  of  the 
raw  material.  A  large  portion  of  western  land  was 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  growth  of  hemp,  and  Congress 
ought  to  pay  as  much  respect  to  the  encouragement  and 
protection  of  husbandry  as  they  did  to  manufactures. 
Boudinot  said  that  hemp  was  a  raw  material  necessary 
for  an  important  manufacture  and  ought  not  to  be  sub- 
ject to  a  heavy  duty.  If  it  were  the  product  of  the 

*  1  Annals  of  let  Congress,  163,  164  (H.  K.  April  16,  1789),     In  the 
tariff  act  nails  were  rated  at  one  cent  per  pound. 


86  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

country  in  general  a  duty  might  be  proper,  but  he  con- 
sidered the  soil  of  the  country  ill  adapted  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  hemp.  Partridge  of  Massachusetts  thought  a 
duty  on  hemp  would  tend  to  discourage  American  nav- 
igation, trade,  and  fisheries,  without  any  good  resulting 
to  warrant  such  an  injury.  He  was  in  favor  of  encour- 
aging agriculture,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  ship-build- 
ing. Ames  doubted  the  propriety  of  taxing  either 
cordage  or  hemp  because,  while  tending  to  encourage 
agriculture  or  manufacturing,  it  would  discourage  the 
maritime  interest.  Lawrence  said,  regarding  the  pro- 
posed duty  on  hemp,  that  the  manufacture  would  be 
annihilated  unless  the  duty  on  cordage  was  correspond- 
ingly raised.  Hartley  would  give  a  small  bounty  to 
hemp  growers,  because  the  existence  of  the  manufacture 
and  of  ship-building  also  was  involved  in  the  price  of 
the  raw  material;  he  hoped  America  would  soon  become 
what  nature  desired  her  to  be — a  maritime  nation. 
White  of  Virginia  said  that  what  might  be  good  policy 
for  Great  Britain,  a  maritime  nation,  might  be  bad 
policy  of  the  United  States,  an  agricultural  country.  If 
the  legislature  took  no  notice  the  people  would  be  led  to 
believe  that  hemp  was  not  an  object  worthy  of  encourage- 
ment, and  the  spirit  of  cultivation  would  be  damped. 
Moore  of  Virginia  declared  that  the  southern  states 
were  well  calculated  for  the  cultivation  of  hemp,  and 
well  inclined  thereto.  Congress  should  pay  as  much 
attention  to  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  hus- 
bandry as  they  did  to  manufactures.  Burke  liked  the 
idea  of  encouraging  hemp,  as  the  present  productions  of 
South  Carolina  hardly  paid,  and  the  State  was  well 
adapted  to  raising  hemp.  Scott,  who  represented  west- 
ern Pennsylvania,  granted  that  manufactures  were  use- 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.      .  87 

ful  establishments,  but  the  circumstances  of  the  United 
States  did  not  admit  of  their  becoming  an  extensive 
manufacturing  country.  They  could  not  expect  to  ex- 
port manufactures  to  foreign  nations;  they  could  not,  on 
account  of  the  demand  for  labor,  vie  with  Europe.  He 
was  as  well  acquainted  with  the  western  country  as  any 
member  of  the  House.  The  lands  along  the  frontier 
were  well  calculated  for  the  cultivation  of  hemp.  If 
encouragement  were  given  vast  quantities  would  soon 
be  brought  at  little  expense  to  Philadelphia.  Fitzsimons 
supposed  there  was  a  clear  distinction  between  taxing 
manufactures  and  raw  materials  well  known  to  every 
enlightened  nation.  He  had  no  doubt  that  enough 
hemp  could  be  raised,  and  was  unable  to  see  why  enough 
was  not  raised.  If  eight  dollars  a  hundred  was  not 
sufficient  inducement  to  farmers,  it  was  proof  that  they 
directed  their  labors  to  more  profitable  productions,  and 
why  should  legislative  authority  be  exercised  to  divide 
their  attention  ?  No  duty  which  they  could  agree  to  lay 
could  give  encouragement  to  the  cultivation  of  hemp,  if 
the  present  price  was  insufficient.* 

The  duty  on  salt  occasioned  an  animated  discussion. 
Lawrence  favored  a  tax  because  it  was  an  article  in  such 
general  use  that  it  could  be  much  depended  on  for  rev- 
enue, but  would  grant  a  draw-back  on  salted  fish  and 
provisions.  Burke  opposed  any  duty,  because  salt  was  a 
necessity  of  life,  and  a  tax  would  be  particularly  odious 
to  the  inhabitants  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  to 


*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  156-161,  217,  219  (April  15,  16,  and  27). 
In  the  tariff  act  cordage  was  rated  at  75  cents  and  hemp  at  60  cents  per 
cwt.  The  following  year  cordage  was  raised  to  $1.00  and  hemp  reduced 
to  54  cents;  but  in  1792  hemp  was  placed  at  $1.00,  which,  according  to 
Gerry  (ib.  217),  would  just  neutralize  the  protection  to  cordage. 


88  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

whom  the  price  was  already  oppressively  great.  Moore 
characterized  the  tax  as  both  unpopular  and  unjust. 
Tucker  declared  that  it  would  bear  harder  on  the  poor 
than  on  the  rich.  Every  one  should  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  government  in  proportion  to  the  value  of 
his  property;  but  the  poor  man  consumed  as  much  salt 
as  the  rich  and  more  of  salted  provisions.  The  duty 
would  enter  into  the  price  and  the  consumer  would  pay 
the  retailer  a  profit  on  the  tax.  Scott  was  decidedly 
against  the  duty.  The  old  argument  in  favor  of  man- 
ufactures did  not  apply,  for  no  duty  would  be  sufficient 
to  establish  it.  If  a  high  duty  were  laid  on  such  an 
indispensable  necessity  of  life,  it  would  be  bad  policy 
and  go  nigh  to  shipwreck  the  government.  He  feared 
it  would  have  a  tendency  to  shake  the  foundations  of 
their  system,  which  he  looked  upon  as  the  only  anchor 
of  their  political  salvation.  Smith  said  it  was  under- 
stood that  the  inhabitants  of  the  interior  of  South  Car- 
olina were  opposed  to  the  new  government,  and  he 
warned  the  House  that  no  stronger  impulse  for  opposi- 
tion could  be  given  than  this  tax.  Madison  remarked 
that  while  it  might  be  just  to  lay  a  considerable  duty 
generally  on  imported  articles,  yet  it  would  not  be  pru- 
dent or  politic  to  do  so  then.  In  order  to  determine 
whether  a  tax  on  salt  was  ju&t  or  unjust  it  must  be  con- 
sidered as  part  of  a  system;  so  considered  the  equilibrium 
was  restored.  He  would  make  the  duty  moderate.  Hunt- 
ingdon of  Connecticut  promised  that  when  his  constitu- 
ents found  that  the  tax  was  imposed  from  principles  of 
justice  and  to  promote  the  public  good,  they  would  pay 
without  reluctance.* 


*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  165  et  seq.  (April  16,  17).    In  the  tariff  act 
salt  was  rated  at  ten  cents  per  bushel. 


THE   TARIFF   OF    1789.  89 

Two  points  were  under  consideration  regarding  a  ton- 
nage duty,  first,  as  to  the  rate  on  foreign  vessels,  and 
secondly,  as  to  whether  there  should  be  a  discrimination 
against  nations  not  in  treaty  relations,  that  is,  against 
England  as  compared  with  France.  Baldwin  of  Georgia 
said  the  expectation  of  the  country  was  that  there  should 
be  a  discrimination.  This  sentiment  was  believed  to  be 
the  cause  of  the  Revolution.  The  selfish  policy  of  Great 
Britain  gave  rise  to  an  unavailing  clamor  and  excited 
the  feeble  attempt  of  several  state  legislatures  to  coun- 
teract the  detestable  regulations  of  a  commercial  enemy. 
These  ineffectual  efforts  led  to  the  Annapolis  Conven- 
tion, and  then  to  the  Constitution.  Lawrence  questioned 
the  statement  that  public  sentiment  favored  discrimina- 
tion. No  privileges  worth  mentioning  were  accorded 
the  United  States  by  France.  He  acknowledged  the 
propriety  of  discriminating  between  their  own  citizens 
and  foreigners,  but  saw  no  good  reason  for  establishing 
a  preference  between  foreign  nations.  Perhaps  England 
might  be  disposed  to  adopt  a  similar  discrimination  and 
destroy  what  carrying  trade  still  remained  to  the  United 
States.  On  the  whole  he  thought  it  good  policy  to  let 
commerce  take  its  own  course.  The  United  States  were 
not  in  a  condition  to  enter  into  a  commercial  war,  and 
in  the  present  condition  of  the  country  they  ought  not 
to  express  satisfaction  or  dissatisfaction  with  foreigners. 
Fitzsimons  had  no  doubt  that  the  nation  should  meet 
the  commercial  regulations  of  foreign  powers  with  reg- 
ulations of  its  own.  The  idea  that  the  tax  would  fall 
upon  the  United  States  was  founded  in  the  presumption 
that  foreigners  could  draw  their  supplies  from  other 
parts  of  the  world.  This  was  not  true;  they  could  not 
be  obtained  any  where  else  than  from  America.  But  it 


90  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

would  not  be  prudent  to  lay  a  duty  so  high  as  to  deprive 
the  United  States  of  foreign  shipping.  Virginia  had  a 
duty  of  one  dollar  and  found  no  difficulty  in  getting 
British  ships  to  carry  its  produce.  He  did  not  think 
sixty  cents  much,  if  any,  above  the  avera.ge  laid  by  the 
state  governments.*  Madison  said  that,  in  the  first 
place,  public  sentiment  favored  discrimination,  and  in 
the  second  place,  while  France  had  relaxed  considerably 
her  rigid  policy,  Great  Britain  had  not.  He  instanced 
Vermont,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland  as  examples  of 
state  that  had  laid  discriminating  duties.  He  believed 
with  Fitzsimons  that  foreigners  must  receive  American 
tobacco,  rice,  etc.,  in  American  shipping  if  they  could 
not  get  it  in  any  other  way.  Tucker  thought  there 
ought  to  be  some  discrimination,  but  the  proposed  rate 
was  too  high.  He  would  vote  for  thirty  cents  and 
twenty  cents.  Madison  suggested  a  gradually  increasing 
duty.  Tucker  did  not  want  the  burdened  citizens  of 
South  Carolina  to  get  the  idea  that  their  burdens  were 
to  be  increased  at  a  later  time.  He  hoped  gentlemen 
who  wished  for  national  encouragement  to  ship-building 
would  be  moderate,  as  they  plainly  saw  that  it  must  be 
at  the  expense  of  their  neighbors.  Madison  admitted 
that  laying  fifty  cents  on  foreign  vessels,  and  but  six 
cents  on  American,  would  put  a  considerable  part  of  the 
difference  into  the  pockets  of  American  ship  owners. 
This  he  considered  a  sacrifice  of  interest  to  policy;  and 
were  it  not  for  the  necessity  of  having  some  naval 
strength,  he  would  advocate  throwing  wide  open  the 

*  In  the  larger  party  conflicts  between  Hamilton  and  Jefferson  which 
Boon  followed,  Fitzsimons  retreated  from  this  position  and  opposed 
discrimination  between  foreign  nations.  (See  Annals  of  Congress,  H.  B. 
Jan.  15,  1794.) 


THE   TARIFF   OF   1789.  91 

doors  of  our  commerce  to  all  the  world  and  making  no 
kind  of  discrimination  even  in  favor  of  American  cit- 
izens.* 

Although  the  bill  as  amended  passed  the  House  with- 
out opposition,  there  was  much  dissatisfaction  with  some 
of  its  provisions.  Some  were  disappointed  because  the 
rates  were  not  higher,  but  there  was  a  more  general  fear 
lest  the  duties  should  prove  so  high  as  to  defeat  the  objects 
of  the  bill,  and  many  were  quite  willing  that  the  Senate 
should  exercise  a  pruning  hand.  Ames,  who  rather 
voiced  the  commercial  feeling  of  the  East,  wrote  under 
date  of  May  27:  "The  Senate  has  begun  to  reduce  the 
rate  of  duties.  Rum  is  reduced  one-third.  Jamaica,  ten 
cents,  common,  eight.  Molasses  from  five  to  four.  I 
feel  as  Enceladus  would  if  Etna  was  removed.  The 
Senate,  God  bless  them,  as  if  designated  by  Providence 
to  keep  rash  and  frolicsome  brats  out  of  the  fire,  have 
demolished  the  absurd,  impolitic,  mad  discriminations 
of  foreigners  in  alliance  from  other  foreigners."  f  The 
House  as  a  whole,  however,  was  irritated  at  the  manner 
in  which  its  work  had  been  overhauled,  and  was  inclined 
to  assert  its  right  to  dictate,  as  it  constitutionally  had  to 
originate,  revenue  measures.  Especially  was  this  true 
as  regarded  the  tonnage  bill,  into  which  political  divi- 
sions of  a  far-reaching  character  had  crept.  But  in  the 


*  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  189-246  (April  21-May  4).  For  a  more 
elaborate  speech  of  Madison  in  the  same  connection  see  supra,  p.  79. 
The  provisions  regarding  tonnage  were  incorporated  in  a  separate  bill 
which  received  the  President's  signature  July  20,  1789.  The  Senate 
struck  out  the  discrimination  between  foreign  nations,  the  rates  being 
6  cents  on  American  vessels,  30  cents  on  American  built  vessels  owned 
wholly  or  in  part  by  foreigners,  and  50  cents  on  all  others. 

1 1  Life  of  Fisher  Ames,  45.  For  Senate  amendments,  see  Senate 
Journal,  vol.  i,  pp.  32-35. 


92  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

end   moderation   and   good   sense   triumphed,  and   the 
House  agreed  to  the  best  terms  it  could  get.* 

By  the  Constitution  the  power  of  originating  financial 
legislation  was  lodged  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
But  the  starting  of  the  new  government  was  of  such 
moment  that  upon  the  appointment  of  Hamilton  to  the 
newly  created  department  of  finance,  the  House  was 
quite  willing  to  turn  over  to  him  the  work  of  initiation,  f 
Resolutions  were  accordingly  passed  calling  upon  the 
Secretary  for  plans  in  various  directions.  The  reports 
in  answer  to  these  resolutions  were  made  the  bases  of 
bills,  which  were  introduced  into  Congress.  The  great 
questions  thus  brought  to  the  front  were  regarding  the 
funding  system,  the  assumption  of  the  state  debts,  and 
the  establishment  of  a  national  bank.  On  these  party 
lines  were  drawn,  and  the  issue  sharply  defined.  The 
opposition,  led  by  Madison  and  inspired  by  Jefferson, 
alarmed  at  the  centralizing  character  of  Hamilton's 
measures  and  suspecting  his  good  faith  toward  republi- 
can principles,  represented  him  as  aiming  to  overthrow 
the  constitution  and  establish  a  monarchy.  Backed  by 
state  jealousies,  they  attacked  his  measures  as  dangerous 
and  unconstitutional.  The  struggle  became  more  and 
more  acrimonious,  and  Washington  who  had  reluctantly 
obeyed  the  call  to  the  presidency  in  the  first  instance, 


*  See  H.  R.  June  15,  1789;  1  Annals  of  1st  Congress,  472.  For  work- 
ings of  the  first  tariff,  see  2  Hamilton's  Works,  110,  161. 

t  Not  without  opposition,  however.  Remonstrance  was  made  at  the 
outset  against  surrendering  this  power  to  the  executive  departments, 
and  as  party  divisions  developed  the  objection  became  more  pronounced. 
The  suggestion  undoubtedly  came  from  Hamilton.  He  considered  that 
his  office  carried  with  it  the  prerogatives  which  belonged  to  an  English 
minister  of  finance,  and  Hamilton  was  pre-eminently  the  party  leader 
of  the  Federalists. 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  93 

and  who  confidently  looked  for  release  at  the  expiration 
of  his  term  of  office,  was  moved  from  his  resolution  by 
the  solemn  assurance  of  both  Jefferson  and  Hamilton 
that  his  continuance  in  office  was  essential  to  the  stabil- 
ity of  the  government.  In  these  party  struggles  Hamil- 
ton won,  and  the  great  state  papers  in  which  he  laid 
down  the  fundamental  principles  which  should  govern 
the  financial  administration  of  the  country  became  the 
model  and  standard  of  all  future  finance  ministers. 

The  tariff  policy  of  the  government  stood  in  a  somewhat 
different  relation  to  the  Treasury  Department.  The  ques- 
tion most  pressing  when  the  government  was  established, 
and  the  one  admitting  of  no  delay,  was  that  of  revenue; 
and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  received  the  first  attention  of 
Congress.  The  Treasury  Department  was  not  estab- 
lished until  September  2,  1789,  and  by  this  time  the 
new  tariff  was  in  operation.  The  question,  therefore,  did 
not  engage  Hamilton's  attention  until  his  other  meas- 
ures were  disposed  of.  The  resolution  of  Congress  under 
which  the  report  on  manufactures  was  prepared  was 
adopted  January  15,  1790;  and  when  his  hands  were 
somewhat  freed  from  other  duties,  Hamilton  turned  with 
deliberateness  to  the  preparation  of  his  reply,  which  was 
not  transmitted  to  Congress  until  December  5,  1791. 

At  this  time  there  was  no  pressing  demand  for  action 
on  the  part  of  Congress.  The  tariff  of  1789  was  in 
operation,  was  yielding  already  more  revenue  than  had 
been  anticipated,  and  the  limit  of  duties,  even  for  pro- 
tection, had,  on  most  articles,  Hamilton  judged,  been 
reached.*  But  although  it  launched  no  new  policy,  this 
third  report  of  Hamilton  was  not  less  enthusiastically 

*  See  his  Report  on  Public  Credit,  Dec.  13, 1790;  2  Hamilton's  Works, 
161. 


94  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

wrought  out  than  the  other  two,  and  perhaps  fell  behind 
neither  in  the  influence  it  was  to  exert  upon  the  policy 
of  the  nation.     Hamilton  felt  the  ebb  tide  of  that  new 
economic   thought   which,  starting   from   English   and 
French  criticisms  of  mercantilism,  had  reached  its  cul- 
mination in  Adam  Smith's  great  work  on  the  "Wealth  of 
Nations,  and  whose  reasoning  had  so  strongly  tinctured 
the   thought   of  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Adams,  Madison, 
Washington,  and  others  of  the  first  group  of  American 
statesmen.     We  have  seen  how  eagerly  the  American 
diplomatists  grasped  after  reciprocity,  and  how  easily 
the  freedom  of  commerce  might  have  been  secured,  had 
not  the  selfishness  of  England  interposed.     But  that 
time  had  gone  by,  and  the  current  had  set  in  the  other 
direction.     Already  the  tariff  of  1789  had  broken  with 
laissez-faire  and  re-asserted  mercantilism.     Yet  the  sen- 
timent for  freedom  of  trade,  the  distrust  of  bungling 
interference  on  the  part  of  the  government,  the  feeling 
that  tariffs  were  partial  and  oppressive,  was  by  no  means 
silenced,  and  Hamilton  felt  the  insufficiency  of  the  old 
basis  and  the  in  part  illogical  character  of  the  reasoning 
behind  the  first  tariff  legislation.     Something  more  was 
needed  to  disarm  the  opposition  of  the  South  and  to 
counteract  the  jealousy  of  the  commercial  interests,  and 
he  set  about  to  make  the  encouragement  of  manufactures 
a  part  of  his  great  national  policy  of  strengthening  the 
general  government  and  binding  together  the  interests 
of  the  various  sections.     In  pursuance  of  this  he  ac- 
cepted and   enforced   Adam  Smith's  refutation  of  the 
more   obvious  physiocratic  and  mercantile  errors,  but 
challenged  his  laissez-faire  conclusions  in  the  name  of 
national  defence  and  national  welfare. 

As  to  details,  Hamilton  had  little  to  suggest  in  the 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  95 

way  of  addition  to  the  tariff  of  1789.  In  the  main  the 
rates  were  satisfactory  both  for  revenue  and  protection. 
Experience  had  shown,  he  said,  that  some  articles  would 
bear  a  higher  rate.  Some  objects  demanded  more  pro- 
tection, and  new  industries  might  soon  invite  the  atten- 
tion of  Congress.  And  from  revenue  considerations 
alone  the  whole  ad  valorem  list  should  be  advanced  a 
step.  But  in  general  things  were  working  well,  and  his 
immediate  recommendations  were  not  specially  signifi- 
cant.* What  gave  the  report  unity  and  significance 
was  the  broadly  national  ground  on  which  the  argument 
for  protection  was  based,  and  the  scope  which  was  given 
to  the  powers  of  the  government  in  its  application. 

Hamilton  began  by  defining  the  scope  of  his  inquiries 
as  relating  particularly  to  the  means  of  promoting  such 
manufactures  as  would  tend  to  render  the  United  States 
independent  of  foreign  nations  for  military  and  other 
essential  supplies.  The  opening  sentence  is  significant: 
"  The  expediency  of  encouraging  manufactures  in  the 
United  States,  which  was  not  long  since  deemed  very 
questionable,  appears  at  this  time  to  be  pretty  generally 
admitted."  The  obstructions  to  commerce  and  the  re- 
strictions upon  the  foreign  market  for  agricultural  pro- 
ductions had  turned  attention,  he  said,  to  the  desirability* 
of  encouraging  domestic  trade  and  markets.  The  com- 
plete success  of  some  manufactures  and  the  promising 
beginning  of  others  justified  the  hope  that  the  obstacles 
were  less  formidable  than  had  been  thought,  and  that  the 
further  extension  of  manufactures  would  fully  make  up 
for  any  external  disadvantages,  and  also  add  to  the  re- 
sources favorable  to  national  independence  and  safety. 

*  The  increase  which  he  asked  for  was  substantially  granted,  though 
sustained  and  opposed  as  a  party  measure. 


96  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

Yet  there  were  those  who  still  objected  to  the  encourage- 
ment of  manufactures,  and  their  objections  he  first  pro- 
ceeded to  answer. 

The  first  objection,  as  Hamilton  stated  it,  was  the 
notion  that  agriculture  was  the  most  productive  in- 
dustry, especially  true  in  the  United  States  with  its 
immense  tracts  of  uncultivated  lands;  and  that  to  en- 
deavor to  accelerate  the  growth  of  manufactures  would 
be  to  endeavor  to  transfer  the  natural  current  of  indus- 
try from  a  more  to  a  less  beneficial  channel.  Govern- 
ment, it  was  held,  could  not  wisely  undertake  to  give 
direction  to  the  industry  of  its  citizens.  Private  interest, 
if  left  to  itself,  would  infallibly  find  its  own  way  to  the 
most  profitable  employment  for  itself.  This  principle 
again,  had  special  force  in  the  United  States.  The 
small  population  and  large  territory,  the  constant  allure- 
ments from  the  settled  to  the  unsettled  parts  of  the 
country,  the  ease  with  which  the  artisan  became  a 
farmer — these,  and  similar  causes,  must  occasion  for  a 
long  time  to  come  a  scarcity  of  labor  for  manufacturing, 
and  dearness  of  labor  generally.  Add  to  these  the  want 
of  capital,  and  the  prospect  of  successful  competition 
with  the  manufactures  of  Europe  became  little  less  than 
desperate.  And  if,  contrary  to  the  natural  course  of 
things,  an  unreasonable  and  premature  development  of 
certain  manufactures  could  be  brought  about  by  heavy 
duties,  prohibitions,  bounties,  and  the  like,  this  would 
only  be  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the  community  to 
those  of  particular  classes.  Monopolies  would  be  created, 
and  the  enhancement  of  price,  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  every  monopoly,  would  fall  upon  the  other 
parts  of  society.  It  would  be  far  preferable  that  those 
persons  should  be  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  the 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  97 

earth,  and  that  the  country  should  procure,  in  exchange 
for  its  productions,  the  commodities  which  foreigners 
were  able  to  supply  in  greater  perfection  and  upon  better 
terms. 

In  reply,  Hamilton  conceded  the  pre-eminence  of 
agriculture,  but  maintained  that  its  interests  would  be 
advanced  rather  than  injured  by  the  due  encouragement 
of  manufactures,  and  that  the  expediency  of  such  en- 
couragement was  urged  by  the  most  cogent  and  persuasive 
motives  of  national  policy.  Of  the  general  physiocratic 
doctrine  that  agriculture  is  the  only  productive  industry, 
he  entered  into  an  elaborate  refututation  along  the  famil- 
iar line  of  reasoning  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.*  He 
then  proceeded  to  enforce  the  general  argument  for 
manufacturing  as  a  wealth  producing  factor,  summar- 
izing its  benefits  under  the  following  heads:  the  division 
of  labor,  the  extension  and  use  of  machinery,  the  addi- 
tional employment  to  persons  not  ordinarily  engaged  in 
business,  the  promotion  of  immigration  from  foreign 
countries,  the  greater  scope  for  diversity  of  talents  and 
dispositions,  the  more  ample  field  for  enterprise,  the 
new  and  more  certain  and  steady  demand  for  the  sur- 
plus produce  of  the  soil. 

As  to  the  benefits  of  a  division  of  labor,  Hamilton 
merely  repeated  Adam  Smith's  analysis.!  Regarding 
the  additional  employment  which  would  be  afforded,  he 
had  in  mind,  he  said,  the  industrious  farmers,  their 
wives  and  daughters,  and  persons  who  would  otherwise 


*  The  only  form,  probably,  in  which  the  physiocratic  objection  met 
Hamilton  was  in  a  lingering  hostility  to  manufactures  as  being  of  lower 
grade  than  tilling  the  soil.  -However,  the  question  was  quite  aside  from 
his  main  line  of  argument. 

t  Of.  Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  1,  Ch.  1. 


98  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

be  idle  and  a  burden  on  the  community.  Four-sevenths 
of  all  the  persons  employed  in  the  cotton  manufactories 
of  England  were  women  and  children,  mostly  children 
of  tender  age.  Again,  manufactures  would  promote 
immigration.  If  they  could  be  assured  of  encourage- 
ment and  employment,  foreign  manufacturers  would  be 
tempted  by  the  prospect  of  better  price,  cheaper  provis- 
ions and  raw  materials,  exemptions  from  taxes,  burdens, 
and  restraints  endured  in  the  old  world,  greater  personal 
independence  and  consequence,  more  equal  government, 
and  religious  liberty.  Thus  manufactures  could  be  pur- 
sued without  interfering  with  agriculture;  and  even  if 
some  hands  were  drawn  from  agriculture,  their  places 
would  be  supplied  by  others  who  had  come  over  as  man- 
ufacturers. If  it  were  true,  he  said,  as  had  often  been 
remarked,  that  there  was  in  the  United  States  a  peculiar 
aptitude  for  mechanical  improvements,  this  was  a  forcible 
reason  for  encouraging  manufactures.  To  cherish  and 
stimulate  the  activity  of  the  human  mind  by  multiplying 
the  objects  of  enterprise,  was  an  important  means  by 
which  the  wealth  of  the  nation  was  promoted.  Every 
new  scene  opened  to  the  busy  nature  of  man  to  rouse 
and  exert  itself,  was  the  addition  of  a  new  energy  to  the 
general  stock  of  effort. 

It  was  by  means  of  the  home  market,  he  declared,  that 
the  establishment  of  manufactures  principally  increased 
the  produce  and  revenue  of  a  country.  It  had  an  imme- 
diate and  direct  relation  to  agriculture,  since  the  pursuit 
of  farming  was  vigorous  or  feeble  in  proportion  to  the 
steadiness  or  fluctuation  of  the  market  for  surplus  pro- 
duce. A  domestic  market  was  greatly  preferable  to  a 
foreign  one  because  in  the  nature  of  things  it  was  more 
reliable.  Every  nation  tried  to  supply  itself  with  pro- 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  99 

visions  from  its  own  soil,  and  hence  a  foreign  demand 
for  agricultural  products  was  casual  and  occasional;  and 
as  regarded  the  United  States,  even  independently  of 
artificial  impediments,  there  were  natural  causes,  such 
as  the  increase  of  agricultural  products  consequent  upon 
the  progress  of  new  settlements,  which  rendered  the 
foreign  demand  too  uncertain  for  reliance.  Such  being 
the  case  the  only  way  to  secure  a  home  market  was 
to  promote  manufactures  ;  for  manufacturers  were 
the  principal  consumers  of  the  surplus  productions 
of  the  soil. 

These  considerations,  Hamilton  observed,  seemed  suf- 
ficient to  establish  the  general  proposition  that  it  was 
the  interest  of  nations  to  diversify  industry.  But  it 
might  be  further  objected,  that,  while  a  state  possessing 
large  tracts  of  fertile  lands  and  secluded  from  foreign 
commerce  would  find  its  interest  to  divert  men  from 
agriculture  to  manufactures,  it  did  not  follow  that  the 
same  reasoning  would  hold  where  all  that  was  needed 
could  be  procured  on.  good  terms  from  abroad.  This 
latter  condition  would  at  least  secure  the  great  advan- 
tage of  a  division  of  labor,  and  leave  the  farmer  free  to 
pursue  exclusively  the  culture  of  his  land. 

If  the  system  of  perfect  liberty  to  industry  and  com- 
merce were  the  prevailing  system  of  nations,  Hamilton 
replied,  the  arguments  which  dissuade  a  country  like 
the  United  States  from  the  zealous  pursuit  of  manufac- 
tures would  doubtless  have  great  force.  He  would  not 
affirm  that  they  might  not,  with  few  exceptions,  be  per- 
mitted to  serve  as  a  rule  of  national  conduct.  Each 
country  would  then  have  the  full  benefit  of  its  peculiar 
advantages  to  compensate  for  its  deficiencies  or  disad- 
vantages; and  though  nations  merely  agricultural  would 


100  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

not  enjoy  the  same  degree  of  wealth  in  proportion  to 
numbers,  yet  the  progressive  improvement  of  lands 
might  in  the  end  atone  for  this;  and  when  considera- 
tions were  pretty  equally  balanced,  the  option  ought 
always  to  be  in  favor  of  leaving  industry  to  its  own 
direction.  But  the  opposite  was  the  general  policy  of 
nations  ;  consequently  the  United  States  were  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  in  the  situation  of  a  country  excluded  from 
foreign  commerce.  They  could,  indeed,  obtain  without 
difficulty  the  manufactures  they  wanted;  but  numerous 
and  very  injurious  impediments  interfered  with  the 
export  of  their  own  commodities.  The  United  States 
could  not  exchange  with  Europe  on  equal  terms;  and 
the  want  of  reciprocity  would  render  them  the  victim  of 
a  system  which  should  induce  them  to  confine  their 
views  to  agriculture  and  refrain  from  manufactures. 
The  constant  and  increasing  necessity  on  their  part 
for  the  commodities  of  Europe,  and  the  only  partial  and 
occasional  demand  for  their  own  in  return,  could  not 
but  expose  them  to  impoverishment.  Americans  did 
not  complain  of  this  state  of  affairs;  nations  must  judge 
for  themselves.  It  only  remained  for  the  United  States 
to  consider  by  what  means  they  could  render  themselves 
least  dependent  on  foreign  policy.  It  was  no  small 
consolation  that  already  measures  which  had  embar- 
rassed the  trade  of  the  country  had  accelerated  internal 
improvements,  and,  upon  the  whole,  bettered  the  condi- 
tion of  affairs.  To  diversify  and  extend  these  improve- 
ments was  the  surest  and  safest 'method  of  indemnifying 
the  country  for  its  inconveniences.  If  Europe  would 
not  take  our  agricultural  products  upon  terms  consistent 
with  our  interest  the  natural  remedy  was  to  contract 
as  fast  as  possible  our  wants  of  Europe.  Though  the 


REPORT  ON  MANUFACTURES.  101 

settlement  of  the  country  might  be  retarded  by  manu- 
factures, this  did  not  countervail  the  powerful  induce- 
ments for  encouragement.  Besides,  it  was  better  that  a 
smaller  quantity  of  land  should  be  well  cultivated  than 
that  more  should  be  poorly  cultivated.* 

But  it  was  said  that  industry  if  left  to  itself  would 
naturally  find  its  way  to  the  most  useful  and  profitable 
employment.  Manufactures  without  the  aid  of  govern- 
ment, would  grow  up  as  soon  and  as  fast  as  the  natural 
state  of  things  and  the  interest  of  the  community  re- 
quired. Hamilton  enumerated  as  objections  to  this: 
The  strong  influence  of  habit,  and  the  spirit  of  imita- 
tion; the  fear  of  failure  in  untried  enterprises;  the  in- 
trinsic difficulties  of  first  attempts  in  competition  with 
business  already  perfected;  and  the  bounties,  premiums, 
and  other  artificial  encouragements  which  foreign  man- 
ufactures enjoyed.  The  simplest  and  most  obvious 
improvements  were  adopted  with  hesitation,  reluctance, 
and  slow  gradations.  Spontaneous  transition  to  new 
pursuits  was  even  more  difficult,  and  the  apprehension 
of  failure  still  more  serious.  To  inspire  confidence  there 
must  be  prospect  of  countenance  and  support  from  the 
new  government.  The  superiority  of  nations  whose 
manufactures  were  already  perfected,  was  still  more 
formidable,  the  greatest  obstacle  being  the  bounties, 
premiums,  and  the  like,  enjoyed  by  foreign  manufac- 

*  Thus  far  Hamilton's  argument,  while  both  adroit  and  able,  was  but 
incidental,  and  added  nothing  to  the  modified  mercantilism  generally 
current.  Had  he  stopped  with  this  his  report  would  have  inspired  no 
system  and  had  no  currency  beyond  the  ordinary  circulation  of  Con- 
gressional documents.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  much  the  modern 
tariff  position  is  thrown  back  on  this  general  preliminary  argument,  aa 
the  powerful  reasons  which  Hamilton  next  proceeded  to  urge  have  one 
by  one  ceased  to  exist. 


102  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

turers,  and  the  combinations  to  crush  out  new  enter- 
prises by  temporary  sacrifices.  To  enable  new  enterprises 
to  contend  with  success  against  these  disadvantages  and 
to  fortify  them  against  the  dread  of  such  combinations, 
the  assurance  of  interference  and  aid  from  the  govern- 
ment was  indispensable. 

Manufacturing  could  not  succeed  in  the  United  States, 
it  was  further  claimed,  because  of  the  scarcity  of  hands, 
the  dearness  of  labor,  and  the  want  of  capital.  The  first 
two  obstacles,  Hamilton  admitted,  were  to  a  certain 
extent  real;  but  various  considerations  lessened  their 
force.  Certain  parts  of  the  country  were  pretty  fully 
peopled,  with  flourishing  and  increasing  towns,  and 
these  were  fairly  mature  for  manufacturing  establish- 
ments. Furthermore,  a  much  greater  use  could  be  made 
of  women  and  children,  and  a  vast  extension  had  been 
given  to  the  employment  of  machinery.  Besides,  arti- 
sans would  transport  themselves  to  the  United  States 
as  soon  as  the  serious  prosecution  of  manufactures  was 
encouraged.  So  far  as  dearness  of  labor  might  be  a 
consequence  of  large  profits,  it  was  no  obstacle  to  suc- 
cess ;  the  undertaker  could  afford  to  pay  the  price. 
Undertakers  could  afford  to  pay  higher  wages  than  in 
Europe.  The  cost  of  materials  on  the  whole  favored  the 
United  States;  in  the  expense  of  buildings,  tools,  and 
the  like,  there  was  perhaps  an  equality;  but  commissions, 
transportation  across  the  Atlantic,  insurance,  taxes,  duties, 
and  fees — amounting  to  from  15  per  cent  to  30  per  cent — 
were  all  in  favor  of  America,  and  this  more  than  coun- 
terbalanced the  difference  in  labor.  As  to  the  alleged 
want  of  capital  in  the  country,  aside  from  the  fact  that 
no  one  knew  how  much  capital  there  was  or  how  much 
was  wanted,  Hamilton  looked  to  the  introduction  of 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  103 

banks,  the  aid  of  foreign  capital,  and  the  funded  debt, 
to  remove  all  disquietude  in  this  regard.* 

Finally  this  whole  objection  was  disposed  of  by  the 
flourishing  manufactures  already  established.  These 
Hamilton  classified  under  seventeen  heads,  including 
leather,  iron,  ships,  cabinet  wares,  flax  and  hemp,  bricks, 
ardent  spirits  and  malt  liquors,  paper,  wool  and  fur  hats, 
refined  sugars,  oils,  soaps,  candles,  copper  and  brass 
wires,  tin-ware,  carriages,  snuff,  tobacco,  starch,  lamp- 
black, gunpowder,  and  many  others,  besides  great  quan- 
tities of  household  manufactures. 

As  to  the  objection  that  the  encouragement  of  manu- 
factures would  create  a  monopoly  to  particular  classes  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest  of  the  community,  Hamilton 
admitted  that  in  some  cases  there  was  an  enhancement 
of  prices.  But  in  several  instances  a  reduction  of  price 
had  immediately  succeeded  the  establishment  of  a  domes- 
tic manufacture;  and  even  were  it  true  that  the  imme- 
diate effect  was  an  increase  of  price,  the  contrary  was 
the  ultimate  effect  with  every  successful  manufacture. 
Free  from  the  heavy  charges  which  attended  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  commodities,  it  could  be  afforded 
cheaper,  and  internal  competition  soon  did  away  with 
everything  like  monopoly.  It  was  therefore  the  interest 
of  the  community  to  suffer  an  increased  price  with  a 
view  to  eventual  and  permanent  economy.  This  had  a 
direct  and  very  important  tendency  to  benefit  agricul- 
ture, enabling  the  farmer  to  procure  with  a  smaller 
quantity  of  labor  the  produce  of  manufacturing. 

Certain  general  considerations  which  Hamilton  ad- 
vanced as  supporting  his  main  argument  were,  the 

*  For  a  criticism  of  this  last  point,  see  Simmer's  Hamilton,  pp.  150, 
174. 


104  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

moral  certainty  that  the  trade  of  a  country  both  manu- 
facturing and  agricultural  would  be  far  more  lucrative 
than  that  of  a  country  merely  agricultural,  the  greater 
attractions  which  a  diversified  market  offered  to  foreign 
customers  and  the  greater  scope  for  mercantile  enter- 
prise, and  the  greater  danger  of  stagnation  in  the  trade 
of  a  nation  which  brought  few  articles  to  market.  From 
these  facts  Hamilton  drew  two  inferences:  First,  that 
there,  was  always  a  higher  probability  of  a  favorable 
balance  of  trade  in  countries  having  a  diversified  indus- 
try; and  secondly,  that  these  countries  were  likely  to 
possess  more  money  than  agricultural  countries.  Cor- 
roboration  of  this  theory  Hamilton  affected  to  find  in 
the  fact  "  that  the  West  India  Islands,  the  soils  of  which 
are  the  most  fertile,  and  the  nation  which,  in  the  great- 
est degree,  supplies  the  rest  of  the  world  with  the  prec- 
ious metals,  exchange  to  a  loss  with  almost  every  other 
country,"  and  in  a  comparison  of  the  monetary  condi- 
tion of  the  colonies  with  that  of  the  states  in  which  since 
the  Revolution  manufactures  had  most  flourished.* 

As  to  the  supposed  conflict  of  interests  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  Hamilton  reiterated  the  idea  that 
the  aggregate  prosperity  of  manufactures  and  the  aggre- 
gate prosperity  of  agriculture  were  intimately  connected. 
Everything  tending  to  establish  substantial  and  perma- 
nent order  in  the  affairs  of  a  country,  to  increase  the 
total  mass  of  industry  and  wealth,  was  ultimately  bene- 
ficial to  all.  Even  if  manufactures  should  be  chiefly 
established  in  the  northern  and  middle  states,  the  South 
would  be  immediately  benefited  by  the  increased  de- 
mand for  its  productions. 


*  See  Sumner'e  Hamilton,  180. 


REPORT  ON  MANUFACTURES.  105 

The  present  moment,  then,  Hamilton  concluded,  was 
a  critical  one  for  entering  with  zeal  upon  the  encourage- 
ment of  manufactures.  Owing  to  the  disturbed  state  of 
Europe  her  citizens  were  inclined  to  emigrate,  and  the 
money  of  foreigners  was  at  the  disposal  of  the  United 
States.  There  was,  too,  a  certain  fermentation  of  mind, 
a  certain  activity  of  speculation  and  enterprise,  which  if 
properly  directed,  might  be  made  subservient  to  useful 
purposes,  but  which,  if  left  entirely  to  itself,  might  be 
attended  with  pernicious  effects. 

As  to  means,  Hamilton  named  eleven  ways  which  had 
been  successfully  employed  in  other  countries:  (1)  pro- 
tective duties,  (2)  prohibitions  or  prohibitive  duties,  (3) 
prohibition  of  the  exportation  of  raw  materials,  (4)  pecu- 
niary bounties,  (5)  premiums,  (6)  exemption  of  raw 
materials  from  duty,  (7)  drawbacks  on  raw  materials, 

(8)  encouragements  of  new  inventions  and  discoveries, 

(9)  regulations  for  the  inspection  of  manufactures,  (10) 
the  facilitating  of  pecuniary  remittances  from  place  to 
place,  and  (11)  the  facilitating  of  transportation;    and 
indirectly,  by  avoiding  certain  kinds  of  taxation,  such 
as  poll  and  income  taxes,  which  were  apt  to  be  oppres- 
sive and  unfriendly  to  manufactures. 

Protective  duties  were  a  virtual  bounty  on  the  domes- 
tic fabrics,  since  by  enhancing  the  charges  on  foreign 
articles  they  enabled  the  home  manufacturers  to  under- 
sell all  foreign  competitors;  in  addition  they  were  a 
source  of  revenue.  Prohibitive  duties  were  an  efficacious 
means  of  encouraging  manufactures,  but  in  general  were 
only  fit  to  be  employed  when  a  manufacture  had  made 
such  progress  and  was  in  so  many  hands,  as  to  insure  a 
due  competition  and  an  adequate  supply  on  reasonable 


106  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY". 

terms.*  The  prohibition  of  the  exportation  of  raw 
materials  was  an  encouragement  to  manufactures  which, 
Hamilton  thought,  ought  to  be  adopted  with  great 
circumspection  and  only  in  very  plain  cases.  Yet 
although  its  immediate  operation  was  to  abridge  the 
demand,  and  keep  down  the  price  of  the  produce  of  some 
other  branch  of  industry — generally  speaking,  of  agri- 
culture— if  it  were  really  essential  to  the  prosperity  of 
any  very  important  national  manufacture,  those  injured 
in  the  first  place  might  be  eventually  indemnified  by 
the  superior  steadiness  of  an  extensive  domestic  market. 
Still  in  a  matter  in  which  there  was  so  much  room  for 
nice  and  difficult  combinations  prudence  seemed  to  dic- 
tate that  the  expedient  in  question  should  be  indulged 
with  a  sparing  hand — a  perfectly  safe  conclusion,  since 
the  Constitution  specifically  prohibited  export  duties  ! 

Of  all  forms  of  encouragement  Hamilton  declared 
bounties  to  be  one  of  the  most  efficacious  and,  in  some 
views,  the  best.  They  acted  more  positively  and  directly 
than  any  other,  and  for  that  reason  had  a  more  imme- 
diate tendency  to  stimulate  and  uphold  new  enterprises. 


*  Laissez-faire  champions  have  been  asking  ever  since,  why  in  such 
cases,  even  on  protectionist  reasoning,  a  prohibitive  or  even  protective 
duty  would  be  necessary.  The  difficulty  in  answering  is  that  the  justi- 
fication of  protection  under  such  circumstances  seems  to  involve  a  prac- 
tical denial  of  the  '  young  industries '  argument,  or  at  least  of  the 
statement  that  the  ultimate  effect  of  protection  is  a  permanent  reduction 
of  prices.  The  best  answer  which  the  early  controversy  could  give  was 
perhaps  that  made  by  McLane  in  1820,  who,  having  in  mind  the  foolish 
prejudice  for  imported  goods  as  well  as  the  many  advantages  in  taste, 
experience,  and  capital,  of  foreign  manufacturers  and  merchants,  de- 
clared that  '  the  American  manufacturers  did  not  ask  to  be  allowed  to 
sell  at  higher  prices,  but  to  sell  at  all.'  Modern  protectionism,  with 
what  President  Andrews  calls  its  " theory  of  nutrient  restriction, "is, 
of  course,  not  embarrassed  by  the  question. 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  107 

They  avoided  the  inconvenience  of  a  temporary  aug- 
mentation of  price.  Even  if  the  fund  for  the  bounty 
was  derived  from  a  protective  duty,  the  increase  of  price 
was  less,  for  one  per  cent  duty  converted  into  a  bounty 
was  equal  to  a  duty  of  two  per  cent.  If  the  bounty  were 
drawn  from  another  source  it  was  calculated  to  reduce 
the  price,  because  without  laying  any  new  charge  on  the 
foreign  article  it  served  to  introduce  a  competition  with 
it  and  to  increase  the  total  quantity  of  the  article  in  the 
market.  Again,  bounties,  unlike  high  protecting  duties, 
had  no  tendency  to  produce  scarcity.  Bounties  would 
settle  the  vexed  question  of  raw  materials.  The  true 
way  to  conciliate  the  interests  of  the  farmer  and  the 
manufacturer  was  to  lay  a  duty  on  foreign  manufactures 
of  the  material,  the  growth  of  which  was  desired  to  be 
encouraged,  and  to  apply  the  produce  of  that  duty,  by 
way  of  bounty,  either  upon  the  production  of  the  mate- 
rial itself,  or  upon  its  manufacture  at  home,  or  upon 
both.  The  prejudice  against  bounties  from  the  appear- 
ance of  giving  away  public  money  without  an  immediate 
consideration,  and  from  the  supposition  that  they  served 
to  enrich  particular  classes  at  the  expense  of  the  com- 
munity, would  not  bear  serious  examination.  In  no 
way  could  money  be  better  employed  than  in  gaining  a 
new  industry,  and  the  further  objection  would  bear 
equally  against  other  modes  of  encouragement.  As  to 
the  constitutional  right  of  the  government  to  grant 
bounties,  Hamilton  thought  there  could  be  no  question. 
Congress  had  express  authority  "  to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts,  and  pro- 
vided for  the  common  defence  and  general  welfare."  The 
latter  term  was  as  comprehensive  as  any  that  could  have 
been  used,  because  it  was  not  fit  that  the  constitutional 


108  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

authority  of  the  Union  to  appropriate  its  revenues 
should  have  been  restricted  within  narrower  limits  than 
the  "  general  welfare,"  and  because  this  necessarily 
embraced  a  vast  variety  of  particulars,  which  were  sus- 
ceptible neither  of  specification  nor  of  definition. 

Premiums  also  were  very  economical  means  of  excit- 
ing the  enterprise  of  a  community.  Much  had  been 
done  in  this  way  in  England,  mostly  by  voluntary  asso- 
ciations. From  a  similar  establishment  in  the  United 
States,  supplied  and  supported  by  the  government,  vast 
benefits  might  reasonably  be  expected.*  To  the  general 
rule  that  raw  materials  should  not  be  taxed,  Hamilton 
noted  certain  exceptions,  as  where  a  raw  material  was 
an  object  of  such  general  consumption  that  it  might 
properly  be  taxed  for  revenue,  and  where  by  encourage- 
ment the  'material  could  be  produced  in  the  country  in 
sufficient  abundance  to  furnish  a  cheap  and  plentiful 
supply  to  the  manufacturers.  As  to  the  encouragement 
of  inventions  and  discoveries,  there  might  be  some  con- 
stitutional question.  But  it  was  customary  for  manufac- 
turing nations  to  prohibit  the  exportation  of  implements 
and  machines  which  they  had  either  invented  or  im- 
proved, and  already  there  were  objects  in  the  United 
States  to  which  a  similar  regulation  should  be  applied. 
This  was  not  very  much  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the 
country,  he  admitted,  but  while  other  nations  pursued 
their  selfish  and  exclusive  policy,  the  United  States 
could  do  no  better  than  to  follow  their  example.  An- 
other thing  much  needed  was  the  improvement  of  roads 

*  A  species  of  protection  of  which  lavish  use  has  been  made,  though 
without  the  interference  of  the  national  government.  Witness  the 
bonding  of  towns  for  railroads,  granting  free  right  of  way,  exempting 
corporations  from  taxations,  and  other  like  favors.  The  River  and 
Harbor  bills  and  various  educational  and  other  grants  of  public  money, 
may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  national  subsidies  to  the  same  purpose. 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES.  109 

and  canals,  and  it  was  much  to  be  wished  that  there 
was  no  doubt  of  the  constitutional  power  of  the  govern- 
ment to  lend  its  direct  aid  on  a  comprehensive  plan. 

As  articles  proper  for  encouragement  Hamilton  named 
iron,  copper,  lead,  coal,  wood,  skins,  grain,  flax  and 
hemp,  cotton,  wool,  silk,  glass,  gunpowder,  paper,  printed 
books,  refined  sugars  and  chocolate.  Of  these  lead  and 
sugar  were  already  sufficiently  protected.  Iron  should 
be  protected  because  it  was  found  in  great  abundance 
and  the  fuel  used  in  its  manufacture  was  cheap  and 
plenty.  Iron  works  had  greatly  increased,  and  the  man- 
ufacture was  prosecuted  with  much  more  advantage 
than  formerly.  The  duty  on  steel  could  be  safely  ad- 
vanced from  75  cents  to  100  cents  per  cwt.,  and  a  duty 
of  two  cents  per  pound  should  be  put  on  nails  to  stop 
the  importation,  which  had  amounted  to  1,800,000 
pounds  in  1790.  The  ad  valorem  duty  on  all  manufac- 
tures of  iron  should  be  extended  to  10  per  cent.  Free 
pig  and  bar  iron  would  certainly  favor  manufactures 
and  probably  not  interfere  with  home  production.  As 
to  copper,  the  material  not  being  a  product  of  the  coun- 
try, it  ought  to  be  put  on  the  free  list,  while  the  duty  of 
5  per  cent  on  brass  wares  and  7-J-  per  cent  on  tin,  pewter, 
and  copper  ware  might  be  raised  to  10  per  cent.  Coal 
being  important  for  manufactures,  bounties  on  home 
production  and  premiums  on  the  opening  of  new  mines 
were  suggested.  Wood  used  in  ship-building  and  cab- 
inet-making should  be  put  on  the  free  list.  The  abund- 
ance of  timber  afforded  no  objection  to  this,  for  the 
United  States  should  commence  and  pursue  systematic 
measures  to  preserve  their  forests.*  Tanneries  were 

*  Unfortunately  the  interested  lumbermen,  while  obliged  to  Hamil- 
ton for  his  general  argument,  could  not  then,  nor  at  any  time  after- 
wards, be  brought  to  take  so  broad  a  view  of  national  welfare. 


110  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

important,  and  an  increase  of  duty  on  leather,  together 
with  a  prohibition  of  the  exports  of  bark,  was  suggested. 
Glue  should  be  raised  from  5  per  cent  to  15  per  cent. 
Exclusive  possession  of  the  home  market  should  be 
secured  for  spirits  and  malt  liquors  by  an  additional 
duty,  and  perhaps  by  an  abatement  on  home-made  spir- 
its. Molasses  had  been  rising  in  price  for  some  years, 
and  the  duty  of  three  cents  might  make  it  difficult  for 
distillers  to  compete  with  the  West  Indies.  A  high  duty 
on  hemp  would  be  objectionable  as  a  tax  on  raw  mate- 
rial, were  there  not  great  facilities  for  raising  it  in  the 
United  States.  However,  bounties  and  premiums  were 
considered  by  many  a  more  direct  method  of  encourag- 
ing the  growth  of  both  flax  and  hemp.  Sail-cloth  should 
be  raised  to  10  per  cent,  with  a  bounty  of  2  cents  per 
yard  on  the  domestic  manufacture  to  counteract  the 
English  export  bounty.  For  the  same  reason  the  duty 
on  certain  linens  should  be  raised  to  7£  per  cent,  to 
counteract  an  average  English  export  bounty  of  12£  per 
cent. 

As  to  cotton,  the  duty  of  three  cents  per  pound  was 
undoubtedly  a  very  serious  impediment  to  manufactures. 
Cotton  had  not  the  same  pretensions  to  protection  as 
hemp  because  not  being  a  universal  product  of  the 
country  it  afforded  less  assurance  of  adequate  supply. 
Besides,  foreign  cotton  was  considered  to  be  of  better 
quality,  and  it  was  certainly  wise  to  let  the  infant  man- 
ufacture have  the  full  benefit  of  the  best  materials  on 
the  cheapest  terms.  For  the  success  of  these  manufac- 
tures the  repeal  of  the  duty  was  indispensable,  and  a 
bounty  of  one  cent  per  yard  would  be  an  expense  well 
justified  by  the  magnitude  of  the  object.  As  to  wool, 
household  manufactures  were  carried  on  to  an  interesting 


REPORT   ON  MANUFACTURES. 


Ill 


extent.  The  branch  of  hat-making  had  reached 
maturity,  and  nothing  but  an  adequate  supply  of  mate- 
rials was  needed  to  render  the  manufacture  commensur- 
ate with  the  demand.  It  was  certainly  most  desirable 
to  encourage  the  raising  and  improving  of  sheep,  but  it 
was  yet  a  problem  whether  American  wool  was  capable 
of  being  made  fit  for  the  finer  fabrics.  Premiums  would 
probably  be  found  the  best  means  of  promoting  the 
domestic,  and  bounties,  the  foreign  supply.  The  silk 
manufacture  might  well  be  encouraged  by  free  raw 
material  and  premiums  on  production.  The  materials 
for  the  manufacture  of  glass  were  found  everywhere. 
The  existing  duty  of  12J-  per  cent  was  a  considerable 
encouragement,  and  if  anything  more  were  needed  it 
should  be  supplied  by  a  direct  bounty  on  window  glass 
and  bottles.  Sulphur  should  be  included  with  saltpetre 
in  the  free  list,  in  the  interest  of  the  manufacture  of  gun- 
powder. As  to  printed  books,  there  was  no  need  of  being 
indebted  to  foreign  countries,  and  the  duty  should  be 
raised  from  5  per  cent  to  10  per  cent,  with  free  im- 
portation for  seminaries  and  public  libraries. 

In  conclusion,  Hamilton  recurred  to  the  subject  of 
bounties,  urging  that  in  some  cases  at  least  they  were 
indispensable.  He  indicated  ways  in  which  they  could 
be  guarded  from  excess,  and  assuming  that  a  surplus 
could  be  counted  on  from  the  existing  revenue  system, 
he  advocated  the  setting  aside  of  a  fund  for  paying 
bounties  to  be  granted  by  Congress,  and  another  fund 
to  be  under  the  control  of  a  board  created  for  promoting 
the  arts,  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce.  This 
board  should  be  composed  of  not  less  than  three  com- 
missioners, who  should  have  power  to  apply  the  fund, 
to  assist  the  immigration  of  artists  and  manufacturers  in 


112  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

particular  branches  of  extraordinary  importance;  to 
promote  useful  discoveries,  inventions,  and  improve- 
ments, by  rewards  judiciously  held  out  and  applied;  to 
encourage  special  exertions  in  promoting  certain  objects, 
by  premiums;  and  to  afford  various  other  aids.  "  It 
may  confidently  be  affirmed,"  he  said,  "that  there  is 
scarcely  anything  which  has  been  devised,  better  calcu- 
lated to  excite  a  general  spirit  of  improvement  than  the 
institutions  of  this  nature.  ...  In  countries  where 
there  is  great  private  wealth,  much  may  be  effected  by 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  patriotic  individuals;  but 
in  a  community  situated  like  that  of  the  United  States 
the  public  purse  must  supply  the  deficiency  of  private 
resource.  In  what  can  it  be  so  useful,  as  in  promoting 
and  improving  the  efforts  of  industry  ?  "  * 

*  For  full  text  of  the  Report,  see  3  Hamilton's  Works,  294-416. 


CHAPTER  III. 

COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 

Hamilton's  Report  on  Manufactures  could  hardly  have 
failed  of  having  an  immediate  and  important  effect  in 
strengthening  and  solidifying  the  protective  system. 
Its  strong  Americanism  and  admirable  temper  must 
have  insensibly  but  powerfully  reinforced  and  directed 
the  general  sentiment  in  favor  of  legislative  encourage- 
ment to  industry.  Not  free  from  economic  errors  of  a 
serious  kind,  these,  even  if  perceived,  would  not  have 
vitiated  the  appeal  to  national  consciousness  and  national 
independence.  Yet  on  its  main  lines  the  report  pro- 
voked no  discussion  in  Congress.  With  the  tariff  of 
1789  in  successful  operation,  Congress  had  come  to  a 
state  of  rest  in  the  matter,  and  inertia  was  hard  to  over- 
come. Even  Hamilton  had  little  disposition  to  meddle 
with  the  schedule  save  for  revenue  purposes.  He  meant 
to  lay  down  a  policy  far-reaching  and  adequate  to  the 
growth  and  needs  of  the  country;  but  it  was  hardly  for 
immediate  action  that  he  prepared.  He  had  already 
admitted  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  rates 
were  as  high  as  the  articles  would  bear,*  and  a  little 
later,  in  asking  for  additional  rates  (which  he  hoped 
would  be  temporary,)  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the 
Indian  war,  he  declared  that  he  did  so  with  reluctance, 


*  See  supra,  p.  93. 

(113) 


114  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

for  the  reason  already  given,  and  because  changes  in 
the  rates  of  duties  by  the  uncertainty  they  caused  in 
mercantile  operations  were  injurious  to  commerce.*  He 
did  not  fail,  however,  to  note  the  beneficial  effects  which 
such  increase  might  have  on  the  "industry,  wealth, 
strength,  independence,  and  substantial  prosperity  of 
the  country."  He  aimed  to  create  a  feeling  toward 
manufactures  so  friendly  that  no  needed  encourage- 
ment would  be  withheld,  but  further  action  at  the  time 
was  not  essential  to  his  general  policy,  and  he  was  per- 
fectly aware  that  his  system  must  wait  the  slow  ripening 
of  events.  The  manufacturers  were  not  wholly  satisfied 
with  the  status  quo,  as  was  manifested  by  the  frequent 
petitions  which  found  their  way  into  Congress;  but  to 
these  there  was  no  one  to  listen,  for  other  and  more  ex- 
citing questions  were  absorbing  public  attention. 

The  great  wheels  of  government  had  hardly  got  into 
motion  when  the  storm  of  factional  controversy  burst 
forth.  The  background  of  the  drama  presently  to  be 
enacted  was  the  old  struggle  between  the  friends  and 
foes  of  the  Constitution — between  those,  at  the  one  ex- 
treme, with  whom  democracy  was  still  synonymous  with 
anarchy,  and  who  saw  success  in  the  new  government 
only  as  it  should  make  itself  felt  as  supreme  and  guiding 
instead  of  as  an  agent  of  discordant  state  governments; 
and  those,  at  the  other  extreme,  who  looked  with  jeal- 
ousy upon  every  exercise  of  power  by  the  general  gov- 
ernment, and  who,  at  first  attacking  the  Constitution 
itself,  presently  rested  their  case  on  a  strict  construction 
of  that  instrument.  Moderate  men  who  approached 
neither  extreme  were  finally  drawn  into  taking  sides  as 

*  Report  on  Additional  Supplies,  H.  R.  March  17, 1792;  2  Hamilton's 
Works,  223. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


115 


party  divergence  became  more  marked.  The  demo- 
cratic element  took  alarm  at  the  very  organization  of 
the  government.  John  Adams  began  his  official  career 
as  vice-president  with  a  vainglorious  display  of  pomp 
which  disgusted  and  alarmed  the  Republicans.  While 
waiting  for  the  arrival  of  Washington  the  Senate  toyed 
with  the  forms  of  monarchy  in  the  etiquette  it  proposed 
to  adopt  in  its  relations  with  the  Executive  and  the 
House.  Even  the  dignity  which  Washington  deemed 
essential  to  the  executive  office  was  offensive  to  the  rad- 
ical element  in  the  country.  Jefferson  returned  from 
France  on  the  eve  of  her  great  democratic  upheaval  to 
find,  "  with  wonder  and  mortification,"  the  table  conver- 
sations filled  with  sentiments  in  favor  of  royalty  and 
kingly  government.*  Hamilton,  in  particular,  was  so 
unguarded  in  his  approval  of  the  English  Constitution 
as  to  convince  Jefferson  that  he  was  not  loyal  to  the  new 
Constitution  and  only  waited  an  opportunity  to  overturn 
it.f  "His  system/'  Jefferson  complained  to  Washington, 
"  flowed  from  principles  adverse  to  liberty,  and  was  cal- 
culated to  undermine  and  demolish  the  republic."  J  In 
Hamilton's  financial  policy  Jefferson  professed  to  see 
only  two  things — a  puzzle  to  exclude  popular  under- 
standing and  inquiry,  and  a  machine  for  the  corruption 
of  the  legislature.§  Matters  were  all  going  wrong,  and 
all  the  evil  machinations  were  traced  to  the  sinister 
mind  of  Hamilton.  He  had  deceived  Washington  and 
moulded  him  to  his  will,  and  by  cabals  with  members  of 
the  legislature,  and  high-toned  declamations,  was  forcing 

*  See  Jefferson's  Anas  ;  9  Jefferson's  Works,  91 ;  also  ib.  vii,  367,  390. 

t  See  3  Jefferson's  Works,  450. 

t  September  9,  1792;  3  Jefferson's  Works,  461. 

§  Jefferson's  Anas;  9  Jefferson's  Works,  91. 


116  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

his  system  down  the  throats  of  the  people.  As  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  he  had  assumed  the  aristocratic  position 
of  an  English  prime  minister  and  usurped  the  functions 
of  the  House  of  ^Representatives.  A  morbid  sensitive- 
ness to  the  letter  of  the  Constitution  began  to  manifest 
itself.  Already  a  sectional  turn  was  given  to  the  strug- 
gle. The  South,  it  was  said,  had  been  chiefly  opposed 
to  the  Constitution,  and  Congress  had  done  nothing  to 
allay  its  fears,  but,  on  the  contrary,  whenever  Northern 
and  Southern  prejudices  had  come  into  conflict,  the 
latter  had  been  sacrificed  and  the  former  soothed.*  The 
national  sentiment  was  still  feeble,  and  it  was  not  then 
to  the  interest  of  the  Republicans  to  discourage  this  out- 
burst of  State  jealousy.  "We  hear  incessantly  from  the 
old  foes  of  the  Constitution,"  wrote  Fisher  Ames, "  '  this 
is  unconstitutional,  and  that  is';  and  indeed,  what  is  not? 
I  scarce  know  a  point  which  has  not  produced  this  cry, 
not  excepting  a  motion  for  adjournment.  .  .  .  The 
fishery  bill  was  unconstitutional;  it  is  unconstitutional 
to  receive  plans  of  finance  from  the  Secretary;  to  give 
bounties;  to  make  the  militia  worth  having;  order  is 
unconstitutional;  credit  is  tenfold  worse."  f  Washing- 
ton's proclamation  of  neutrality  was  bitterly  denounced, 
not  only  for  its  hostility  to  France,  but  as  violating  the 
forms  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  J 

*  See  letter  of  Washington  to  Hamilton,  July  29, 1792;  10  Washing- 
ton's Works,  249  et  seq. 

t  Ames  to  Minot,  March  8, 1792;  1  Life  of  Fisher  Ames,  114. 

t  See  1  Madison's  Works,  584.  June  12, 1789,  Senator  Maclay  wrote 
in  his  journal :  "  My  mind  revolts  in  many  instances  against  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States.  Indeed,  I  am  afraid  it  will  turn  out  the 
vilest  of  all  traps  that  ever  was  set  to  ensnare  the  freedom  of  an  unsus- 
pecting people.  .  .  .  Mem.  Get  if  I  can  the  Federalist  without 
buying  it.  It  is  not  worth  it.  But  being  a  lost  book,  Izard  or  some  one 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


117 


Soothingly  as  Hamilton's  Report  on  Manufactures  fell 
upon  the  general  discussion  regarding  protection,  it  was 
a  firebrand  in  these  wider  political  struggles.  The  tariff 
of  1789,  passed  before  party  lines  had  been  sharply 
drawn,  had,  seemingly  at  least,  a  distinctively  non-par- 
tisan character.  But  some  features  of  the  first  debate 
had  revealed  more  than  cursory  differences  and  dis- 
closed for  a  moment  the  party  divisions  and  angry 
struggles  of  the  near  future.  Then  came  the  plans  of 
Hamilton,  the  resistless  sweep  of  whose  measures  filled 
the  Republicans  with  terror.  His  extension  of  the  pro- 
tective system,  his  proposal  of  bounties  and  premiums, 
his  assumption  that  the  general  government  had  power 
to  do  whatever  would  promote  the  general  welfare, 
seemed  almost  like  treason.  "  [It]  broaches  a  new  con- 
stitutional doctrine  of  vast  consequence,"  wrote  Madison, 
with  more  than  usual  feeling,  "  I  consider  it  myself  as 
subverting  the  fundamental  and  characteristic  princi- 
ples of  the  government;  as  contrary  to  the  true  and  fair, 
as  well  as  the  received  construction,  and  as  bidding 
defiance  to  the  sense  in  which  the  Constitution  is  known 
to  have  been  proposed,  advocated,  and  adopted."  *  Jef- 
ferson tried  to  put  Washington  on  his  guard  against 
plans  which  would  draw  all  the  powers  of  government 
into  the  hands  of  the  general  legislature;  \  but  what  was 

else  will  give  it  to  me.  It  certainly  was  instrumental  in  procuring  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  This  is  merely  a  point  of  curiosity  and 
amusement,  to  see  how  wide  of  its  explanations  and  conjectures  the 
etream  of  business  has  taken  its  course"  (Sketches  of  Debate  in  the 
First  Senate,  p.  79.) 

*  Madison  to  Edmund  Pendleton,  Jan.  21, 1792;  1  Madison's  Works, 
546. 

T  Jefferson  to  Washington,  Sept.  9,  1792;  3  Jefferson's  Works,  461, 
463. 


118  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

more  to  the  purpose,  now  thoroughly  alarmed,  with  tire- 
less energy  he  knit  together  the  opposition  into  a  com- 
pact body  waging  relentless  war  upon  every  detail  of  Ham- 
ilton's insidious  policy.  Had  Hamilton's  report  preceded 
the  adoption  of  a  revenue  system  the  question  concerning 
the  constitutionality  of  protective  tariffs  might  have 
been  tested  a  half  century  earlier  than  it  really  was. 
But  there  was  a  tacit  agreement  not  to  disturb  the  exist- 
ing system;  and  such  changes  as  Hamilton  recommended, 
including  his  excise  system,  which  Jefferson  pronounced 
"  an  infernal  tax,"  were  adopted  as  strict  party  meas- 
ures. 

The  disastrous  ending  of  St.  Glair's  Indian  campaign, 
in  November,  1791,  made  new  demands  upon  the  Treas- 
ury. Hamilton's  proposals  included  a  general  advance 
of  2-J-  per  cent  ad  valorem  and  some  few  changes  in  the 
enumerated  list.  In  the  debate  that  ensued  the  posi- 
tions of  1789  were  re-affirmed  with  somewhat  more 
sharpness.  The  proposal  to  remove  the  duty  from 
cotton  was  opposed  by  the  South,  while  the  enhanced 
duty  on  hemp  was  as  generally  supported.  Page  of 
Virginia,  while  favoring  the  duty  on  cotton,  denounced 
the  bill  as  not  really  intended  for  the  protection  of  the 
frontiers,  but  as  a  compromise  for  the  assumption  of 
the  State  debts  and  as  an  encouragement  of  the  manu- 
facturers and  the  fisheries.  Encouraging  manufactures 
he  thought  foreign  to  the  business  of  Congress,  and  if 
not  so,  a  mere  taking  from  one  hand,  and  giving  to 
another.*  Mercer  of  Maryland  declared  that  a  manufac- 
ture which  would  not  after  a  sufficient  stimulus  support 
itself,  ought  not  to  be  encouraged;  and  when  it  no 
longer  needed  aid  the  tax  ought  to  be  withdrawn,,  The 


Quoted  in  Young's  Customs-Tariff  Legislation,  pp.  xxi,  xxii. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


119 


bounties  on  certain  articles  were  in  fact  paid  from  the 
staples  of  the  Southern  States  by  producing  retaliating 
regulations  in  their  only  markets  abroad.*  But  the 
stress  of  opposition  did  not  fall  upon  the  protective 
character  of  the  bill.  Madison,  arguing  that  the  pro- 
posed bounty  on  fish  was  unconstitutional,  took  occasion 
to  define  again  the  limits  of  the  federal  power.  This 
was  not  an  indefinite  government,  he  said,  deriving  its 
powers  from  the  general  terms  prefixed  to  the  specific 
powers,  but  a  limited  government  tied  down  to  the  spec- 
ified powers  which  explain  and  define  the  general  terms. 
Were  the  power  of  Congress  to  be  established  in  the 
latitude  contended  for  it  would  subvert  the  very  founda- 
tion, and  transmute  the  very  nature  of  the  limited  gov- 
ernment established  by  the  people  of  America,  f 

The  Administration,  Mercer  declared,  would  not  even 
permit  Congress  to  defend  the  helpless  women  and  chil- 
dren of  the  frontier  from  the  brutal  ferocity  of  a  savage 
foe,  but  on  condition  that  they  surrender  up  forever  the 
sacred  trust  of  the  Constitution  and  place  in  the  power 
and  under  the  control  of  the  Executive  and  Senate  a 
perpetual  tax.  The  Treasury  department,  he  complained 
bitterly,  was  the  really  efficient  legislature  of  the  coun- 
try, so  far  as  related  to  revenue,  which  was  the  vital 
principle  of  government.  J 

But  aside  from  the  general  political  struggles  which 
forbade  any  further  application  of  the  protective  system, 
there  was  a  much  stronger  reason  for  not  disturbing  the 
existing  arrangement.  The  industry  which  thrust  itself 
forward,  and  on  which  legislation  so  often  turned  during 

*  H.  R.  January  27,  1792;  1  Annals  of  2d  Congress,  352. 

t  H.  R.  February  6,  1792;  1  Annals  of  2d  Congress,  386,  389. 

i  H.  R.  January  27,  1792;  1  Annals  of  2d  Congress,  350,  351. 


120  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

the  years  that  followed,  was  not  manufactures  but  com- 
merce. Commerce  was  the  controlling  interest  of  the 
Northeast,  and  its  international  character  gave  it  an 
exceptional  importance.  That  the  Constitution  origi- 
nated in  a  commercial  necessity  *  was  a  truism  at  the 
East,  and  the  commercial  and  mercantile  interests, 
rather  than  either  agriculture  or  manufactures,  had 
traced  the  limits  of  the  tariff  of  1789.  Of  all  these 
industries  commerce  was  destined  to  the  most  rapid 
growth;  and  the  extraordinary  condition  of  European 
affairs  which  was  first  to  make  the  United  States  com- 
mon carriers  for  all  the  world,  and  then  to  involve  that 
whole  commerce  in  ruin,  prevented,  while  it  prepared 
the  way  for,  that  peculiar  national  feeling  out  of  which 
the  American  system  was  to  emerge.  Upon  this  mer- 
cantile and  commercial  interest  Hamilton  planted  his 
whole  policy.  That  the  moneyed  interest  of  the  country 
should  support  the  new  government,  he  considered  a 
prime  necessity,  and  he  strained  every  nerve  to  bind  it 
to  the  new  order  of  things.  Though  demanding  a  gen- 
erous policy  toward  manufactures,  not  flinching  when 
this  seemed  opposed  to  the  selfish  ends  of  commerce,  he 
was  careful  to  antagonize  no  real  interest  of  the  mon- 
eyed classes.  When  he  called  for  additional  duties,  as  in 
the  bill  for  the  protection  of  the  frontiers,  his  opponents 
endeavored  to  make  capital  out  of  the  apparent  hostility 


*  See  Speech  of  Fisher  Ames,  H.  R.  May  5, 1789 ;  1  Annals  of  1st 
Congress,  265.  '  The  vital  interests  of  the  Union  depend  upon  the 
commercial  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  Federal  government  was 
ushered  into  existence  with  almost  a  single  eye  to  it ' ;  Maine  memor- 
ial against  the  Tariff,  1820  (Annals  of  the  16th  Congress  2d  Session, 
Appendix,  p.  1493).  See  also  Massachusetts  remonstrance  in  1813 ;  1 
Annals  of  13th  Congress,  338. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


121 


to  commerce;*  but  in  all  this  an  immense  advantage 
lay  with  Hamilton  whose  advocacy  of  protection  was 
frank,  cordial,  and  unaffected.  To  Madison,  indeed, 
belonged  the  chief  credit  for  the  tariff  of  1789,  but  Mad- 
ison could  never  separate  his  advocacy  of  protection 
from  an  avowal  of  preference  for  free  trade,  and  besides 
he  represented  a  constituency  as  indifferent  to  commerce 
as  it  was  averse  to  further  legislation  in  favor  of  man- 
ufactures. 

However,  a  turn  in  foreign  relations  gave  an  oppor- 
tunity to  antagonize  Hamilton's  anglicism,  which  man- 
ifested itself  in  a  steady  promotion  of  trade  with  England. 
Hamilton  had  not  objected  to  a  discrimination  in  favor 
of  American  shipping  as  against  all  the  world,  but  since 
nearly  all  their  commerce  was  with  the  British  Empire, 
he  regarded  the  attempt  to  discriminate  between  France 
and  England  in  favor  of  the  former  as  a  piece  of  folly 
and  commercially  disastrous.  Outside  of  the  commer- 
cial centers,  however,  this  rebuke  to  England  chimed  in 
with  popular  feeling.  Madison  had  made  it  a  special 
feature  of  the  first  tariff  bill,  and  it  had  been  adopted  by 
the  House  with  practical  unanimity.  Its  rejection  by 
the  Senate,  Madison  charged,  was  due  to  the  deep  angli- 
cism in  which  New  York  was  steeped, f  and  their  excuse 
that  they  wanted  something  more  efficacious  he  regarded 
as  the  evasion  it  undoubtedly  was. 

Early  in  1791,  in  a  special  message  to  Congress,  Wash- 
ington recounted  the  steps  he  had  taken  in  endeavoring 

*  In  the  debate  on  the  bill  just  referred  to,  Mercer  called  attention  to 
the  petitions  from  the  great  commercial  capitals  of  America,  which  rep- 
resented that  the  impositions  on  commerce  were  already  oppressive 
and  intolerable.  H.  K.January  27,  1792;  1  Annals  of  2d  Congress,  351. 

1 1  Madison's  Works,  472,  467 ;  see  also  Sketches  of  Debate  in  the 
First  Senate,  p.  94. 


122  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

to  come  to  an  understanding  with  England  on  several 
points,  particularly  regarding  reciprocity,  and  stated 
that  as  a  result  of  informal  conferences  with  British 
ministers  he  did  not  infer  any  disposition  on  their  part 
to  enter  into  such  an  arrangement.*  The  message  was 
referred  to  a  select  committee,  whose  action  in  turn  was 
referred  to  the  Secretary  of  State  with  instructions  to 
report  to  Congress  the  privileges  and  restrictions  of 
commercial  intercourse  with  foreign  nations,  with  such 
measures  as  he  deemed  proper  to  be  adopted.  Jefferson 
noted,  as  he  thought,  an  unfriendly  design  on  Hamil- 
ton's part,  and  as  he  set  about  his  report  to  Congress  he 
tested  Hamilton's  views  by  mentioning  that  he  should 
recommend  a  commercial  retaliation  against  Great  Brit- 
ain. Hamilton  strenuously  objected,  and  this  action 
Jefferson  regarded  as  an  invasion  of  his  own  prerogative 
as  Secretary  of  State.  "  My  system,"  he  complained  to 
Washington,  "  was  to  give  some  satisfactory  distinctions 
to  the  French,  of  little  cost  to  us,  in  return  for  the  solid 
advantages  yielded  us  by  them;  and  to  have  met  the 
English  with  some  restrictions,  which  might  induce 
them  to  abate  their  severities  against  our  commerce.  I 
have  always  supposed  this  coincided  with  your  senti- 
ments; yet  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  his  cabals 
with  members  of  the  legislature  and  by  high-toned 
declamations  on  other  occasions,  has  forced  down  his 
own  system,  which  was  exactly  the  reverse."  f 

Jefferson  felt  this  interference  the  more  keenly  because 
of  his  ardent  sympathy  with  the  French  Revolution, 
then  in  its  greatest  promise.  The  beginning  of  that 

*  H.  R.  February  14, 1791 ;    2  Annals  of  let  Congress,  2015. 
f  Jefferson  to  Washington,  Sept.  9,  1792;  3  Jefferson's  Works,  459  et 
seg.;  also  10  Washington's  Works,  517  et  seq. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


123 


Revolution  had  stirred  the  blood  of  American  patriots 
as  it  had  not  been  stirred  since  their  own  great  struggle. 
Not  only  was  it  a  revolt  against  tyranny  and  oppression, 
but  it  held  aloft  the  banner  of  liberty  and  equality. 
Besides,  France  had  borne  toward  the  struggling  Repub- 
lic the  only  sympathetic  and  generous  countenance  in 
all  Europe,  and  had  brought  timely  aid  in  its  dire  ex- 
tremity. Every  sentiment  of  self-respect  as  well  as  of 
gratitude  seemed  to  demand  that  France  in  turn  should 
be  aided  in  every  way  consistent  with  national  honor. 
A  considerable  portion  of  the  country  would  have 
responded  to  a  declaration  of  war  against  England,  and 
the  whole  French  party  would  barely  have  come  short 
of  such  a  proceeding.  The  coolness  of  the  government 
under  these  circumstances,  the  determination  to  main- 
tain strict  neutrality  and  avoid  all  foreign  complications, 
seemed  to  the  Republicans  the  basest  ingratitude.  Wash- 
ington's proclamation  of  neutrality  was  offensive  because 
of  its  discourtesy  and  unfriendliness  toward  France 
rather  than  because  of  its  alleged  unconstitutionally. 
Jefferson  had  given  a  reluctarrt  consent  to  its  issuance, 
but  he  privately  explained  that  its  form  and  spirit  had 
been  totally  changed.*  For  a  time  it  seemed  likely  that 
the  Federalists  would  be  overthrown;  but  the  reckless 
extravagance  of  the  French  faction  and  the  insolence  of 
Citizen  Genet  soon  turned  the  scale.  This  episode,  how- 
ever, while  temporarily  discrediting  the  French  party, 
cleared  the  atmosphere  of  much  foolish  sentimentalizing 
and  prepared  the  way  for  a  more  rational  attempt  to 
express  sympathy  with  France,  f 


*  4  Jefferson's  Works,  20. 
t  See  1  Schouler,  259,  260. 


124  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

Meanwhile  the  situation  was  becoming  complicated 
by  the  growing  carelessness,  not  to  say  insolence,  of 
Great  Britain  regarding  American  trade.  Not  only  was 
there  no  indication  of  granting  any  commercial  privi- 
leges with  the  West  Indies,  but  in  June,  1793,  the  British 
ministry  issued  orders  for  the  seizure  of  all  vessels  car- 
rying provisions  to  France.  In  the  irritation  which 
this  act  produced  came  Jefferson's  opportunity  to  strike, 
and  Dec.  16,  1793,  just  before  retiring  from  the  Cabinet, 
he  submitted  his  Report  on  the  condition  of  trade  with 
foreign  countries.  The  report  consisted  of  an  exhaust- 
ive examination  of  the  restrictions  upon  American  trade 
and  a  discussion  at  length  of  the  principles  upon  which 
the  United  States  should  proceed.  Jefferson  found  that 
American  bread-stuffs  were  at  most  times  under  prohib- 
itive duties  in  England,  and  considerably  dutied  on 
re-exportation  from  Spain  to  her  colonies.  Tobacco  was 
heavily  dutied  in  England,  Sweden,  and  France,  and 
prohibited  in  Spain  and  Portugal.  Rice  was  heavily 
dutied  in  England  and  Sweden  and  prohibited  in  Portu- 
gal. Fish  and  salted  provisions  were  prohibited  in 
England  and  under  prohibitive  duties  in  France. 
Whale  oils  were  prohibited  in  England  and  Por- 
tugal; and  American  vessels  were  denied  naturaliza- 
tion in  England  and  France.  In  the  West  Indies 
all  intercourse  was  prohibited  with  the  possessions  of 
Spain  and  Portugal.  Salted  provisions  and  fish  were 
prohibited  by  England,  and  salted  pork  and  bread- 
stuffs,  except  maize,  were  received  under  temporary 
laws  only  in  the  dominions  of  France,  salted  fish 
even  there  paying  a  high  duty.  As  to  navigation, 
American  carriage  of  their  own  tobacco  was  heavily 
dutied  in  Sweden  and  France,  no  article  not  of  home 


COMMERCE   VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


125 


production  could  be  carried  to  the  British  ports  in 
Europe,  and  not  even  American  produce  could  be  car- 
ried to  the  British  West  Indies  in  American  ships. 

Turning  to  remedies,  Jefferson  declared  that  of  the 
two  methods  of  dealing  with  such  restrictions  he  would 
prefer  that  of  a  friendly  arrangement.  Instead  of  em- 
barassing  commerce  under  piles  of  regulating  duties 
and  prohibitions,  he  would  have  it  relieved  from  all  its 
shackles  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  with  every  country  em- 
ployed in  producing  that  which  nature  had  best  fitted  it 
to  produce,  and  each  free  to  exchange  with  others 
mutual  surplusses  for  mutual  wants.  Would  even  a 
single  nation  begin  with  the  United  States  this  system 
of  free  commerce,  it  would  be  advisable  to  begin  it  with 
that  nation.  But  free  commerce  and  navigation  were 
not  to  be  given  in  exchange  for  restrictions  and  vex- 
ations; and  should  any  nation  continue  its  system  of 
prohibitions,  duties,  and  regulations,  it  behooved  the 
United  States  to  protect  its  citizens  by  counter-prohibi- 
tions, duties,  and  regulations.  Following  closely  in 
Hamilton's  footsteps,  Jefferson  saved  himself  from  in- 
consistency by  referring  to  the  State  governments  those 
forms  of  encouragement  to  manufactures  which,  in  his 
opinion,  the  general  government  had  no  power  to  offer. 
He  would  select  such'  manufactures  as  were  obtained 
from  the  offending  nation  in  greatest  quantities,  and 
could  be  soonest  developed  within  the  United  States  or 
obtained  from  other  foreign  countries,  and  by  gradually 
increasing  duties,  endeavor  to  draw  the  foreign  manu- 
facturer to  America.  He  would  have  the  State  govern- 
ments open  their  resources  and  extend  them  liberally  to 
those  manufactures  for  which  their  soil,  climate,  pop- 
ulation, and  other  circumstances  had  matured  them, 


126  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

especially  fostering  the  precious  efforts  and  progress  of 
household  manufactures. 

So  far  Jefferson  seemed  but  echoing  Hamilton's  own 
ideas  of  reciprocity;  but  the  drift  of  his  report  was  made 
sufficiently  evident  in  the  concluding  statement  that 
while  France  of  her  own  accord  had  proposed  negotia- 
tions for  a  new  treaty  of  commerce,  England  had  rejected 
all  such  proposals  on  the  part  of  the  United  States. 
However,  no  positive  deductions  were  drawn,  and  there 
was  no  deviation  from  the  judicial  tone  which  charac- 
terized the  report.  But  this  was  only  the  first  step,  and 
in  the  House  Madison  promptly  introduced  *  a  resolu- 
tion proposing,  among  other  things,  to  lay  additional 
ad  valorem  duties  on  various  manufactures  of  countries 
not  in  treaty,  additional  tonnage  duties,  to  the  same 
purpose,  countervailing  regulations  and  restrictions,  and 
providing  for  the  payment  from  such  duties  of  losses 
sustained  in  consequence  of  the  illegal  regulations  of 
other  countries.! 

The  debate  which  followed  is  interesting  as  fore- 
shadowing a  struggle  which  was  to  bring  the  Union  to 
the  verge  of  dissolution,  but  more  particularly  as  mark- 
ing the  limits  of  protective  legislation  and  the  strong 
forces  which  held  the  tariff  to  its  original  moorings. 
January  13,  William  Smith  of  South  Carolina,  in  an 
elaborate  speech  prepared  by  Hamilton,  combatted  the 
conclusions  of  Jefferson's  report,  and  opposed  Madison's 
resolutions.  Their  ears  were  accustomed,  he  said,  to  a 
panegyric  on  the  generous  policy  of  France,  and  to  as 
constant  a  philippic  on  the  unfriendly,  illiberal,  and 

*  Jan.  3, 1794. 

t  For  Jefferson's  Report,  see  Annals  of  3d  Congress  (Appendix)  pp. 
1290  et  seq. ;  also  7  Jefferson's  Works,  637  et  seq. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


127 


persecuting  policy  of  Great  Britain.  The  reverse  was 
really  the  case,  England  granting  far  more  substantial 
advantages  than  France.  From  Jefferson's  report  it 
appeared  that  three-fourths  of  the  imports  of  the  country 
came  from  Great  Britain  and  her  dominions.  This  was 
considered  by  some  a  grievance,  but  to  an  unbiased 
mind  it  demonstrated  the  great  importance  and  utility 
of  the  trade  with  Britain.  Nor  could  an  alteration  be 
made  but  by  means  violent  and  contrary  to  the  interests 
of  the  country,  except  in  one  way,  which  was  not  the 
object  of  the  report,  namely,  an  efficacious  system  of 
encouragement  to  home  manufactures.  Imports  from 
Great  Britain  were  large  because  England  was  the  first 
manufacturing  country  in  the  world  and  could  supply 
them  on  the  best  terms,  and  because  her  merchants 
had  large  capitals  and  could  give  extensive  credit.  Man- 
ifestly it  was  the  interest  of  the  United  States  to  be 
supplied  with  the  manufactures  it  wanted,  of  the  best 
quality  and  on  the  best  terms,  and  to  take  them  from 
that  country  which  was  most  able  to  furnish  them. 

The  Navigation  Act  was  deemed  by  England  the  pal- 
ladium of  her  riches,  greatness,  and  security,  and  would 
not  be  surrendered  without  a  struggle — a  war  of  arms 
or  of  commercial  regulations.  While  three-fourths  of 
our  trade  was  with  Great  Britain,  only  one-sixth  of  her 
trade  was  with  us.  That  our  supplies  were  more  neces- 
sary to  her  than  hers  to  us  was  a  position  which  our  self- 
love  gave  more  credit  to  than  facts  would  authorize.  Well- 
informed  men  in  other  countries  affirmed  that  Great 
Britain  could  obtain  a  supply  of  most  of  our  productions 
as  cheap  and  of  as  good  quality  elsewhere.  On  the 
other  hand,  where  should  the  United  States  find  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  vast  supply  of  manufactures  which  it  got 


128  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

from  that  country.  No  one  would  say  that  the  United 
States  could  suddenly  replace  them  by  their  own  man- 
ufactures, or  that  this,  if  practicable,  could  be  done 
without  a  violent  distortion  of  the  natural  course  of 
industry.  The  prosperity  of  the  nation  was  not  a  plant 
to  thrive  in  a  hot  bed.  It  was  agreed  on  all  hands  that 
our  great  natural  interests,  our  population,  agriculture, 
manufactures,  commerce,  and  navigation,  were  in  a 
thriving  and  progressive  state,  and  were  advancing 
faster  than  was  to  have  been  expected,  and  as  fast  as 
could  be  reasonably  desired.  The  additional  duties 
were  objectionable  because  the  existing  duties,  averaging 
nearly  twenty  per  cent,  were  already,  generally  speaking, 
high  enough  for  the  state  of  mercantile  capital  and  the 
safety  of  collection.  To  reciprocity,  on  the  solid  basis 
of  treaties,  there  was  no  objection.  But  why  should  this 
young  country  throw  down  the  gauntlet  in  favor  of 
free  trade  against  the  world?  There  might  be  spirit  in 
it,  but  there  would  certainly  not  be  prudence.* 

The  position  of  agriculture  and  commerce  was  frankly 
stated  during  the  debate.  Hartley  of  Pennsylvania,  who 
had  made  the  first  demand  for  a  protective  tariff  in 
1789,  affirmed  that  while  he  had  always  been  a  friend  to 
manufactures,  and  wished  them  every  proper  encourage- 
ment, he  was  sure  they  might  go  too  fast.  The  manu- 
facturers, he  believed,  were  well  satisfied  with  what  had 
been  done.  On  the  other  hand,  the  protecting  duties 
had  already  enhanced  the  price  of  labor  very  consider- 
ably, and  this  had  extended  to  husbandry.  If  protective 
duties  were  increased  the  manufacturer  would  just  add 
the  difference  to  his  price.  Of  course  the  farmers  would 


*  Annals  of  3d  Congress,  174-209. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


129 


have  to  bid  higher  for  labor  in  order  to  prevent  the 
countryman  or  adventurer  from  going  into  a  manufac- 
tory or  workshop.  The  cultivation  and  improvement  of 
the  country  were  primary  considerations,  and  no  policy 
should  be  adopted  which  would  disturb  them.* 

The  most  vigorous  speech  was  made  by  Fisher  Ames. 
In  general  he  sustained  Smith's  (Hamilton's)  position, 
and  indirectly  defended  England's  course.  The  good 
will  and  friendship  of  nations — "  the  jargon  of  romance  " 
— he  declared,  were  hollow  foundations  to  build  upon. 
Mutual  interest  was  the  solid  rock  of  their  connection 
with  England.  "  If  it  is  her  interest  to  afford  to  our 
commerce  more  encouragement  than  France  gives,  if 
she  does  this  when  she  is  inveterate  against  us,  as  it  is 
alleged,  and  when  we  are  indulging  an  avowed  hatred 
towards  her,  and  partiality  towards  France,  it  shows 
that  we  have  very  solid  ground  to  rely  on."  He  hoped 
that  they  shouldfnever  be  so  unwise  as  to  put  their  good 
customers  into  a  situation  to  be  forced  to  make  every 
exertion  to  do  without  them.  If  a  trade  was  mutually 
beneficial,  it  was  strangely  absurd  to  consider  the  gains 
of  others  as  our  loss.  "  Trade  flourishes  on  our  wharves," 
he  declared, "  although  it  droops  in  speeches.  Manufac- 
tures have  risen,  under  the  shade  of  protecting  duties, 
from  almost  nothing  to  such  a  state  that  we  are  even 
told  it  is  safe  to  depend  on  the  domestic  supply,  if  the 
foreign  should  cease."  "  But  the  whole  theory  of  bal- 
ances of  trade,  of  helping  it  by  restraint,  and  protecting 
it  by  systems  of  prohibition  and  restriction  against  for- 
eign nations,  as  well  as  the  remedy  for  credit,  are  among 
the  exploded  dogmas  which  are  equally  refuted  by  the 
maxims  of  science  and  the  authority  of  time."  If  he 

*  H.  R.  Jan.  24, 1794;  Annals  of  3d  Congress,  292. 


130  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

could  have  his  way  he  would  throw  all  the  restrictive 
and  prohibitory  laws  into  the  fire.  But  so  many  inter- 
ests would  be  disturbed,  and  so  many  lost,  by  any  violent 
change,  that  the  idea  of  absolute  freedom  of  commerce 
must  be  regarded  as  perfectly  Utopian  and  wild.* 

The  debate  was  adjourned  until  March,  and  by  that 
time  news  had  arrived  of  further  British  orders  which 
swept  the  seas  of  all  American  commerce  with  the 
French  West  Indies,  f  An  embargo  was  immediately 
laid;  but  Republicans  were  as  loath  as  Federalists  to  fol- 
low this  by  adequate  provisions  for  war,  and  Washington 
seized  the  opportunity  to  send  a  special  mission  to 
England.  The  result  was  the  Jay  treaty,  which  though 
highly  offensive  to  Jefferson  and  fiercely  contested  in 
the  House,  was  satisfactory  to  commerce,  and  secured 
for  ten  years  free  course  for  development. 

For  the  next  decade  there  was  little  impulse  toward 
protective  tariffs.  Manufactures  indeed  grew  steadily, 
but  without  seriously  lessening  the  dependence  upon 
foreign  manufactures.  At  the  instance  of  the  Treasury 
department  the  tariff  was  occasionally  changed,  and  the 
rates  slowly  pushed  upward.  Hamilton  found  no  occa- 
sion to  remove  the  additional  duties  he  had  hoped  would 
prove  only  temporary,  and  his  successors  did  not  even 
consider  the  question.  But  the  pressure  for  government 
assistance  was  hardly  felt  at  a  time  when  commerce  was 
growing  at  an  unexampled  rate  and  not  only  calling 
into  its  service  every  man  who  could  be  allured  from 
agriculture  and  manufactures  in  America,  but  eagerly 
accepting  English,  French,  and  Spanish  deserters,  both 
ships  and  men.  While  Europe  was  distressed  with 

*  H.  R.  Jan.  27,  1794;  Annals  of  3d  Congress.  328-349. 

t  See  2  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  322  et  seq. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  131 

wars,  America,  peculiarly  and  unexpectedly  shielded  by 
the  Jay  treaty,  became  the  carriers  for  the  direct  and 
indirect  trade  between  America  and  Europe,  and  even 
for  the  trade  between  one  European  country  and  an- 
other.* 

In  1801  the  Federalists,  promoters  of  commerce  and 
of  close  relations  with  England,  gave  way  to  the  Repub- 
licans, jealous  of  English  influence  and  at  best  indiffer- 
ent to  commerce.  Jefferson  himself  had  in  general  a 
prejudice  against  commerce  as  entangling  the  United 
States  with  other  nations,  and  as  inconsistent  with  the 
Virginia  ideal  of  republican  and  pastoral  simplicity. 
He  had  begun  by  professing  the  vain  wish  of  setting  up 
a  Chinese  wall  over  against  Europe,!  and  his  bitter 
experience  in  trying  to  protect  commerce  by  destroying 
it,  confirmed  him  in  a  hostility  which  he  could  not 
overcome.  So  much  commerce  as  would  carry  off  super- 
fluities, was  his  final  as  his  first  thought.  He  wanted 
the  United  States  to  become  no  mere  city  of  London,  he 
said,  to  carry  on  the  business  of  half  the  world  at  the 
expense  of  eternal  war  with  the  other  half.  "  Had  we 
carried  but  our  own  produce,  and  brought  back  but  our 
own  wants,  no  nation  would  have  troubled  us."  J  How- 
ever, on  beginning  his  administration  he  recognized  the 
absorption  of  the  East  in  commercial  pursuits  as  an 
inevitable  part  of  human  imperfection;  and  with  his 
party  in  power  and  himself  in  the  chief  place,  he  felt  no 
inconsistency  in  regarding  commerce  as  very  much  less 
menacing  to  the  Republic,  and,  indeed,  in  deference  to 
the  East,  which  he  meant  to  purge  of  its  old  Federalism, 

*  See  2  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  322-326. 

t  Supra,  p.  42. 

t  See  letter  to  Crawford,  June  20, 1816 ;  7  Jefferson's  Works,  6,  7. 


132  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

as  an  industry  to  be  cherished.  "  I  am  sensible/'  he 
replied  to  an  address  from  the  legislature  of  Rhode 
Island,  "of  the  great  interest  which  your  State  justly 
feels  in  the  prosperity  of  commerce.  It  is  of  vital  inter- 
est also  to  States  more  agricultural,  whose  produce, 
without  commerce,  could  not  be  exchanged.  As  the 
handmaid  of  agriculture,  therefore,  commerce  will  be 
cherished  by  me  both  from  principle  and  duty."  * 

All  went  well  so  long  as  only  favorable  winds  were 
blowing.  Jefferson  dreamed  the  dream  of  republican 
simplicity,  while  his  own  initiative  and  the  stress  of 
events  were  drawing  him  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
whirlpool  of  European  complications.  Until  the  First 
Consul  unexpectedly  put  Louisiana  into  his  hands  he 
leaned  toward  England,  protesting  his  friendship  and 
even  proposing  an  indissoluble  British  alliance,  f  Suc- 
cess in  the  Louisiana  negotiation,  and  the  prospect  of 
Napoleon's  assistance  in  obtaining  the  Floridas  drew 
him  to  the  side  of  France  and  into  a  cooler  attitude 
toward  England.  He  prepared  to  assert  the  full  Amer- 
ican rights  against  England,  and  when  the  English 
government  courteously  offered  to  renew  the  essential 
part  of  the  expiring  Jay  treaty,  Monroe,  then  minister 
to  England,  promptly  declined,  stating  that  the  Presi- 
dent wished  to  postpone  the  matter  until  he  could 
include  impressment  and  neutral  rights  in  the  treaty,  f 
For  a  while  Jefferson  balanced  himself  unsteadily  be- 
tween the  two  European  contestants,  leading  each  to 
believe  that  the  United  States  would  take  sides  with 
that  one  in  the  struggle  then  going  on.  But  both 

*  May  26, 1801 ;  4  Jefferson's  Works,  398. 

t  See  2  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  78. 

t  2  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  421. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES. 


133 


Napoleon  and  Canning  soon  understood  that  the  last 
thing  Jefferson  meant  to  be  forced  into  was  war.  He 
had  started  out  with  the  idea  that  commerce  was  not 
worth  a  war,*  but  he  had  an  even  brighter  illusion — 
the  notion  that  the  commerce  of  the  United  States 
was  so  necessary  to  Europe,  and  especially  to  Eng- 
land, that  the  mere  threat  to  withdraw  it  would  be 
sufficient  to  secure  justice,  f  This  persistent  repub- 
lican notion,  clung  to  by  Jefferson  after  everyone 
else  had  abandoned  it,  made  the  Republic  contemp- 
tible abroad,  completed  the  ruin  of  commerce  at 
home,  nearly  severed  the  Union,  and  sent  Jefferson 
into  retirement  with  a  stinging  sense  of  defeat  and 
public  disapproval.  Blow  after  blow  fell  heavily  upon 
American  commerce,  orders  in  Council,  Berlin  and 
Milan  decrees,  even  British  ships  blockading  American 
harbors.  Meantime,  negotiations  failing,  goaded  by 
taunts  from  Napoleon  and  insolence  from  British  min- 
isters, Jefferson  serenely  prepared  to  take  the  last  step 
to  which  his  policy  led — to  lay  an  indefinite  embargo 
and  withdraw  from  all  European  intercourse  until  Eng- 
land and  France  were  prepared  to  do  him  justice. 

It  is  conceivable,  as  Jefferson  always  claimed,  that 
had  the  embargo  been  persisted  in  it  would  have  hast- 
ened, if  it  had  not  brought  about,  commercial  peace, 
though  it  could  have  gained  the  United  States  little 
respect  among  European  nations.  The  success  of  the 
embargo,  however,  depended  on  the  devotion  of  the 
people  to  the  Jeffersonian  policy;  and  unfortunately  this 
policy  bore  most  severely  upon  a  section  of  the  Union 

*  See  1  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  215. 
t  See  1  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  214 ;  and  Jeffer- 
son's  Works,  passim. 


134  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

which  had  neither  taste  nor  inclination  for  martyrdom. 
Old  federalism  stung  to  fury  by  the  ruin  of  embargo, 
and  new  republicanism  knowing  little  and  caring  less 
about  JefFersonian  principles,  united  to  pull  down  the 
embargo  before  England  or  France  had  relaxed  in  the 
slightest  their  obnoxious  decrees.  No  further  step  could 
they  take  together,  however,  for  the  Federalists,  hating 
Jefferson  as  the  author  of  all  their  misfortunes,  professed 
to  believe  that  he  was  acting  under  direct  orders  from 
Bonaparte,  and  insisted  that  England  was  wholly  in  the 
right. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose  to  trace  the 
fate  of  commerce  further.  But  one  incidental  effect  of 
vast  importance  had  already  made  itself  manifest.  The 
removal  of  the  overshadowing  importance  of  commerce, 
not  less  than  the  sudden  monopoly  of  the  home  market, 
acted  as  a  powerful  stimulus  to  manufactures,  which 
now  began  to  come  forward,  not  so  much  for  government 
encouragement  as  for  protection  against  a  return  to  the 
old  state  of  things  and  consequent  loss  of  their  market. 
Toward  this  new  phase  of  the  situation  the  Republican 
leaders  turned  with  constantly  increasing  interest  and 
satisfaction.  In  his  second  inaugural  address  Jefferson, 
referring  to  a  possible  surplus  revenue  in  the  future, 
noted  that  the  tariff  was  cheerfully  paid  by  those  who 
could  afford  to  add  foreign  luxuries  to  domestic  com- 
forts, and  raised  the  question  whether,  in  time  of  peace, 
this  revenue  might  not,  by  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution, be  applied  to  rivers,  canals,  roads,  arts,  man- 
ufactures, education,  and  other  great  objects  within  each 
State.*  In  his  annual  message,  December,  1806,  he 

*  1  Statesman's  Manual,  173, 174;  Annals  of  8th  Congress,  2d  Session, 
78 ;  8  Jefferson's  Works,  41. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS   MANUFACTURES.  135 

recommended  the  continuation  of  the  Mediterranean 
Fund,  remarking  that  the  duties  were  laid  chiefly  on 
luxuries,  and  again  broached  the  question  as  to  what 
should  be  done  when  a  surplus  revenue  began  to  accu- 
mulate. Shall  it  be  abolished,  he  ventured  to  say,  and 
thus  give  foreign  manufactures  that  advantage  over 
domestic,  or  since  it  is  chiefly  on  luxuries,  will  not 
people  rather  have  it  expended  on  roads,  education,  and 
the  like  ?  *  November,  1807,  he  noted  with  interest  the 
establishment  of  the  Merino  breed  of  sheep  in  America, 
the  beginnings  of  cotton  manufacture,  the  general  spirit 
of  encouraging  domestic  manufactures,  and  the  fact  that 
Philadelphia  was  becoming  more  manufacturing  than 
commercial.!  In  his  last  annual  message  he  took  a 
more  positive  stand,  evidently  foreseeing  a  new  way  out 
of  commercial  difficulties.  "  The  situation  into  which 
we  have  thus  been  forced,"  referring  to  the  European 
complications,  "  has  impelled  us  to  apply  a  portion  of 
our  industry  and  capital  to  internal  manufactures  and 
improvements.  The  extent  of  this  conversion  is  daily 
increasing,  and  little  doubt  remains  that  the  establish- 
ments formed  and  forming,  will — under  the  auspices  of 
cheaper  materials  and  subsistence,  the  freedom  of  labor 
from  taxation  with  us,  and  of  protecting  duties  and 
prohibitions — become  permanent."  J 

*  1  Statesman's  Manual,  190,  191 ;  8  Jefferson's  Works,  68.  Since  the 
rich  alone  used  imported  articles,  the  poor  man,  Jefferson  reasoned, 
would  have  no  taxes  to  pay.  Then,  "  our  revenues  liberated  by  the 
discharge  of  the  public  debt,  and  its  surplus  applied  to  canals,  roads, 
schools,  etc.,  the  farmer  will  see  his  government  supported,  his  children 
educated,  and  the  face  of  his  country  made  a  paradise  by  the  con- 
tributions of  the  rich  alone,  without  his  being  called  on  to  spend  a  cent 
from  his  earnings  "  (Jefferson  to  General  Kosciusko,  April  13,  1811 ; 
5  Jefferson's  Works,  586). 

t  Jefferson  to  Maury,  Nov.  21,  1807 ;  5  Jefferson's  Works,  214. 

$  Nov.  8, 1808;  1  Statesman's  Manual,  216;  8  Jefferson's  Works,  109. 


136  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

In  retirement,  Jefferson  returned  to  his  old  notion  of 
an  equilibrium  between  agriculture,  manufactures,  and 
commerce,  wanting  of  manufactures,  he  wrote  Jay, 
simply  enough  to  supply  their  own  wants,  of  which  the 
raw  material  was  raised  in  the  country.*  To  General 
Dearborn  he  wrote  a  year  later  regretting  the  repeal  of 
the  embargo,  and  affirming  his  belief  that  England 
could  have  been  coerced  to  justice  if  the  embargo  had 
been  honestly  executed.  But  he  found  consolation  in 
the  thought  that,  after  all,  his  essential  policy  would 
prevail  through  the  new  manufactures  which  England's 
policy  was  forcing  into  existence.  "  Radically  hostile  to 
our  navigation  and  commerce,  and  fearing  its  rivalry," 
he  wrote,  referring  to  Great  Britain,  "  she  will  com- 
pletely crush  it,  and  force  us  to  resort  to  agriculture, 
not  aware  that  we  shall  resort  to  manufactures  also,  and 
render  her  conquests  over  our  navigation  and  commerce 
useless,  at  least,  if  not  injurious  to  herself  in  the  end, 
and  perhaps  salutary  to  us,  as  removing  out  of  our  way 
the  chief  causes  and  provocations  to  war."  f  Yet  Jeffer- 
son in  the  retirement  of  Monticello  got  scarcely  a 
glimpse  of  the  '  manifest  destiny '  of  manufactures,  and 
presently,  writing  again  to  De  Nemours,  he  reiterated 
his  theory  of  the  independence  of  commerce,  agricul- 
ture, and  manufactures,  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
their  new  manufactures  were  mostly  of  the  household 
kind,  of  which  they  should  probably  make  enough  for 
home  use,  and  predicted  that  the  attempt  to  make  fine 
goods  would  prove  abortive.}; 

*  Jefferson  to  Governor  Jay,  April  7,  1809 ;  5  Jefferson's  Works,  440. 
t  Jefferson  to  Gen.  Dearborn,  July   16,  1810 ;  5   Jefferson's  Works, 
529. 
$  April  15, 1811 ;  5  Jefferson's  Works,  583. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  137 

Madison,  in  his  first  annual  message,  found  consola- 
tion for  the  '  arbitrary  and  impolitic  edicts  of  Europe  ' 
in  the  extension  of  useful  manufactures,  especially  of 
household  fabrics.*  A  year  later  he  congratulated  Con- 
gress on  the  *  highly  interesting  extension  of  useful 
manufactures/  declaring  that  in  a  national  view  the 
change  was  more  than  a  recompense  for  the  injustice 
which  gave  the  impulse  required  for  its  accomplishment. 
How  far  it  might  be  expedient  to  guard  the  infancy  of 
this  improvement  in  the  distribution  of  labor,  by  regu- 
lations of  the  commercial  tariff,  he  cautiously  added, 
was  a  subject  which  could  not  fail  to  suggest  itself  to 
their  patriotic  reflections.!  A  year  later  he  was  more 
explicit,  urging  upon  Congress  the  importance  of  a 
"just  and  sound  policy  of  securing  to  our  manufac- 
tures the  success  they  have  attained  and  are  still  at- 
taining, in  some  degree,  under  the  impulse  of  causes 
not  permanent."  \  The  robbery  and  theft  of  Bonaparte, 
and  the  effect  of  English  monopoly,  he  wrote  Jefferson, 
"  are  breaking  the  charm  attached  to  what  is  called  free 
trade,  foolishly  by  some,  wickedly  by  others ."  §  Two 
years  later  when  war  had  actually  begun  he  declared 
that  unrestricted  intercourse  with  England,  among 
other  things, "  would  strangle  in  the  cradle  the  manufac- 
tures which  promise  so  vigorous  a  growth."  || 

Even  Gallatin,  who  long  afterward  boasted  of  having 
been  the  first  free  trader  in  America,T  fell  easily  into 

*  1  Statesman's  Manual,  280  (Nov.  29,  1809). 

t  Madison's  Second  Annual  Message,  Dec.  5,  1810;  1  Statesman's 
Manual,  283. 

%  1  Statesman's  Manual,  289. 

$  May  25,  1810 ;  2  Madison's  Works,  478. 

||  Madison  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of  South  Carolina,  July  8, 
1812 ;  2  Madison's  Works,  525. 
TT  See  letter  to  J.  R.  Ingersoll,  March  25, 1846 ;  2  Gallatin's  Writings,  628. 


138       •  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

the  current.  As  finance  minister  at  a  time  when  war 
was  imminent  he  began  to  consider  plans  for  such  an 
emergency,  and  in  his  annual  reports,  beginning  with 
1807,  laid  down  the  general  principles  on  which  a  war 
policy  should  be  based.*  Without  reference  to  manu- 
facturers, he  turned  to  the  tariff  as  the  best  means  of 
raising  revenue,  and  affirmed  that  a  considerable  in- 
crease of  duties  was  perfectly  feasible.  In  December, 
1809,  Seybert  of  Pennsylvania  secured  the  reprinting  of 
Hamilton's  Report  on  Manufactures  and  the  adoption  of 
a  resolution  by  the  House  of  Representatives  calling 
upon  Gallatin  for  a  similar  statement  regarding  the 
present  condition  of  manufactures.  Gallatin  replied, 
April  19,  1810,  with  a  detailed  account  of  the  existing 
manufactures,  and  an  elaborate  discussion  of  their  pros- 
pects and  needs  which  fell  little  behind  Hamilton  in  the 
sweep  of  its  proposed  measures.  The  debate  which 
Gallatin's  report  precipitated  did  not  find  the  House 
wholly  unprepared.  The  subject  had  been  coming  to 
the  front  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  commercial 
troubles,  and  a  decidedly  friendly  attitude  toward  fur- 
ther legislation  in  the  way  of  direct  encouragement  to 
manufactures  had  been  reached. 

As  the  state  of  the  country  developed  a  more  consid- 
erate feeling  toward  manufactures,  petitions  began  to 
pour  in  upon  Congress  making  firmer  and  more  positive 
demands.  Typical  among  these  earlier  memorials  was 
that  of  the  artisans  and  manufacturers  of  Philadelphia, 
communicated  to  the  House  December  9,  1803.  On  the 
whole,  it  was  a  rather  frank  confession  of  present  weak- 
ness, with  a  vigorous  assertion,  along  Hamiltonian  lines, 
of  the  manufacturing  resources  and  capabilities  of  the 

*  See  H.  C.  Adams'  Public  Debts,  112  et  seq. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  139 

country.  The  fact  that  manufactures  were  already  pro- 
tected was  scouted,  as  became  so  much  the  fashion  later, 
and  considering  the  small  account  which  was  then  taken 
of  a  foreign  market  for  American  manufactures,  a  good 
deal  was  made  of  the  prohibitions  of  European  nations. 
"  It  is  with  deep  concern,"  the  memorial  said,  "  that 
your  memorialists  have  to  represent  that  during  the 
long  period  from  the  peace  which  terminated  our  Rev- 
olutionary war  to  the  present  time,  they  have  seen  the 
wealth  of  the  nation  sent  to  foreign  countries  to  pur- 
chase  a  thousand  articles  which  can  be  as  well  manu- 
factured at  home,  and  of  which  nature  has  abundantly 
supplied  us  with  the  raw  materials."  There  were  few 
articles  of  first  necessity  which  could  not  be  produced  at 
home  on  equal  terms  if  not  prevented  by  certain  reasons, 
which  the  memorial  proceeded  to  give.  First,  foreign 
fashions  stood  in  the  way,  especially  with  regard  to 
clothing.  It  was  impossible  to  keep  pace  with  changes 
introduced  by  new  patterns  from  foreign  nations. 
Second,  American  markets  were  constantly  over-stocked 
with  foreign  goods.  The  greater  part  of  the  manufac- 
tures of-  which  iron,  silk,  wool,  cotton,  or  flax,  were  the 
raw  materials,  ought  to  be  established  in  the  interior  of 
the  country,  where  provisions,  house-rent,  and  fuel  were 
cheap;  but  if  the  foreign  manufacturer  was  permitted  to 
keep  merchants  supplied  with  these  goods  on  long 
credit,  it  would  be  impossible  for  citizens  with  small 
capital  to  persuade  the  storekeeper  to  purchase  his  goods 
for  ready  money.  The  third  reason  was  the  unjust  com- 
petition with  foreign  manufacturers — unjust  because  the 
finished  articles  of  our  infant  manufactures  produced 
from  raw  materials  found  in  the  United  States  were 
generally  either  prohibited  in  foreign  countries  or  more 


140  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

highly  tariffed  than  similar  goods  coming  into  the 
United  States.  An  infant  manufacture  must  have  some 
protection  to  enable  it  to  contend  with  an  old  establish- 
ment; yet  in  the  United  States  the  reverse  had  taken 
place.  Fourth,  the  expense  necessarily  attending  the 
commencement  of  complicated  manufactures.  Fifth, 
injudicious  duties  on  raw  materials.  "  It  is  a  position," 
the  memorial  went  on  confidently,  "  that  will  not  be 
denied  by  the  greatest  enemies  to  domestic  manufactur- 
ing, that  as  soon  as  any  particular  branch  shall  be 
established,  foreign  goods  of  the  same  kind  ought  to  be 
prohibited  or  discouraged;  and  this  is  certainly  the  case 
with  every  manufactory  of  leather  and  fur;  and  yet  your 
memorialists  would  be  glad  to  know  by  what  mode  of 
reasoning  it  can  be  made  to  appear  tbat  the  hatter  and 
shoemaker,  who  have  spent  their  youth  in  acquiring 
those  arts,  should  every  five  or  six  years,  be  ruined  by 
an  excessive  importation  of  foreign  hats  or  shoes  which 
may  perhaps  be  the  remaining  estate  of  some  European 
bankrupt  ?  " 

The  memorial  denied  that  the  United  States  were  too 
young  to  commence  the  manufacture  of  clothing,  or  that 
the  development  of  the  West  would  be  retarded.  As  to 
the  supposed  vice  of  manufacturing  towns,  the  facts  of 
European  manufactories  denied  it.  The  idea  that  if  a 
manufacture  did  not  take  root  of  itself  it  was  not  fit  for 
our  climate  or  state  of  society,  was  true  only  of  simple 
manufactures;  where  a  combination  of  skill  and  capital 
was  required  it  could  only  be  secured  by  the  fostering 
care  of  government.  If  there  were  not  hands  enough 
in  America,  it  only  proved  the  necessity  of  protective 
tariffs,  which  alone  could  give  encouragement  to  men  of 
genius  to  pursue  complex  and  difficult  manufactures. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  141 

Protection  would  benefit  agriculture  because  the  pro- 
gress of  agriculture  was  always  in  proportion  to  popu- 
lation, and  agriculture  alone  would  never  concentrate 
population.  Revenue  likewise  would  be  increased 
owing  to  the  increase  of  population  and  increase  of 
demand  for  luxuries  ;  for  nothing  could  be  more 
appropriate  than  to  tax  foreign  fashions  and  foreign 
luxuries.* 

These  various  memorials  and  petitions  received  a 
favorable  hearing  from  the  committee  on  Commerce  and 
Manufactures^  which  reported  January  25,  1804,  ex- 
pounding at  some  length  the  demands  of  the  manufac- 
turers of  corks,  coaches,  harnesses,  paper,  gunpowder, 
hats,  printing  types,  brushes,  stoneware,  hemp  and  sail- 
duck,  the  calico  printers  and  dyers,  cordwainers,  and 
shoemakers.  Various  specific  measures  were  recom- 
mended tending  to  the  release  of  raw  materials  from 
duty  and  to  higher  rates  on  certain  competing  articles.  I 
Nothing  came  of  this  at  the  time,  but  the  manufacturers 
lost  no  courage,  and  presently  the  fruits  of  non-inter- 
course and  embargo  dropped  into  their  hands.  Even 
the  repeal  of  the  salt  tax  was  violently  opposed  by 


*  Annals  of  8th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appendix),  pp.  1467-1477. 

t  Perhaps  due  to  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  1803,  which  threatened  the 
supremacy  of  American  shipping. 

t  Annals  of  8th  Congress,  1st  Session,  946-949.  After  referring  to  the 
"excellent  and  extensive"  manufactures  which  the  fostering  care  of 
the  government  had  caused  "  to  rise  up  and  thrive  in  almost  every  part 
of  the  country,"  the  Committee  added  :  "  And  if  we  do  not  excel  in  the 
manufacture  of  the  finer  articles  of  cotton,  silk,  wool,  and  the  metals, 
we  may  felicitate  ourselves  that,  by  reason  of  the  ease  of  gaining  a  sub- 
sistence and  the  high  price  of  wages,  our  fellow  citizens,  born  to  happier 
destinies,  are  not  doomed  to  the  wretchedness  of  a  strict  discipline  in 
such  manufactories." 


142  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

Quincy,  nominally,  at  least,  on  the  ground  that  the  salt 
manufacturers  of  Barnstable  and  Cape  Cod  would  be 
ruined.* 

This  upward  movement  toward  manufacturing  did 
not,  of  course,  escape  attention,  and  the  very  arguments 
used  in  support  of  protection  were  turned  against  it. 
Owing  to  the  liberal  price  of  wages,  joined  with  the 
plenty  and  cheapness  of  land,  it  was  declared  to  be 
impossible  for  manufactures  to  flourish  in  the  United 
States  in  their  present  situation,  although  it  was  ad- 
mitted that  some  of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States  would 
eventually  become  manufacturing  States,  when  peace 
returned  in  Europe  and  things  came  down  to  their 
natural  standard,  f  In  the  debate  on  the  non-importa- 
tion act,  Eppes  of  Virginia  expressed  the  Southern  senti- 
ment that  the  total  prohibition  of  British  manufactures 
would  be  extremely  injurious.  It  would  put  down  at 
once  the  occupation  and  employment  of  the  merchant 
of  small  capital,  for  commerce,  particularly  at  the  south, 
was  carried  on  principally  on  credit  furnished  by  Great 
Britain.  J  Macon  of  North  Carolina  reinforced  Marsters' 
statement,  and  affirmed  that  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts had  both  tried  the  experiment  of  manufactures 


*  H.  R.  Jan.  12-13,  1807 ;  Annals  of  9th  Congress,  2d  Session,  pp. 
290,  301.  Jefferson  recommended  in  his  annual  message,  December, 
1806,  that  the  salt  tax  be  abolished  on  the  ground  that  "salt  was  a 
necessary  of  life."  "  Now  I  ask,"  said  Quincy,  in  unanswerable  pro- 
tectionist logic,  ' '  which  is  the  readiest  means  to  '  the  free  use '  of  any 
article?  To  make  it  ourselves,  or  to  be  dependent  for  it  on  others? 
The  strongest  argument  in  the  world,  in  favor  of  patronizing  this  man- 
ufacture, is  the  very  one  used  by  the  President,  in  effect,  for  its  destruc- 
tion." 16.,  p.  302. 

t  Marsters  of  New  York  in  H.  R.  March  6, 1806;  Annals  of  9th  Con- 
gress, 1st  Session,  p.  581. 

$  H.  R.  March  10,  1806. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  143 

without  success.*  Bidwell  of  Massachusetts,  quasi-re- 
publican leader,  answered  Quincy's  argument  for  the 
repeal  of  the  salt  tax  by  saying  that  the  interests  of  a 
few  manufacturers  ought  not  to  be  put  in  competition 
with  the  general  interests  of  the  country,  arid  Holland 
of  North  Carolina  declared  that  if  the  salt  manufacture 
was  destroyed  those  only  would  be  to  blame  who  had 
been  such  forward  speculators  in  the  matter,  f 

But  the  tide  was  going  the  other  way;  and  when  Mar- 
sters  indicted  the  administration  by  declaring  that  the 
embargo  virtually  inhibited  all  intercourse  with  foreign 
nations  and  that  it  would  tear  up  by  the  roots  and  anni- 
hilate the  commerce  of  the  country,  many  silently  ac- 
quiesced who  totally  dissented  from  his  picture  of 
resulting  ruin  and  distress  and  wild  state  of  nature  to 
which  the  United  States  would  return.  J  Bibb  of  Geor- 
gia, at  this  same  session,  introduced  a  resolution  pledg- 
ing the  members  of  the  House  to  appear  at  the  next 
session  clothed  in  the  manufactures  of  their  own  coun- 
try,§  and  though  not  taken  seriously,  it  voiced  a  widely 
growing  sentiment.  "I  rejoice,"  affirmed  Giles,  quasi- 

*  H.  R.  March  10, 1806;  Annals  of  9th  Congress,  1st  Session,  p.  692. 
t  H.  R.  Jan.  13,  1807 ;  Annals  of  9th  Congress,*2d  Session,  p.  307. 

*  H.  R.  April  13,  1808;  Annals  of  10th  Congress,  1st  Session,  p.  2109. 
Nelson  of  Maryland  would  never  vote  for  the  repeal  or  suspension  of 
the  non-importation  law.    He  hoped  to  see  the  time  when  it  should 
become  a  permanent  regulation;   he  would  not  yield  to  any  of   the 
powers  of  Europe,  and  wished  to  be  independent  of  them.    There  were 
many  things  now  imported  from  Europe  which  could  as  well  be  made 
in  this  country  (H.  R.  April  25, 1808.) 

While  Virginia  was  suffering  most  severely  from  the  operations  of  the 
embargo,  Giles  declared  that  he  was  a  farmer  and  that  the  embargo 
was  a  good  thing  for  the  farmer — it  lessened  his  dependence  on  foreign 
nations  (Senate,  Nov.  24,  1808.) 

$  H.  R.  April  25,  1808.  Henry  Clay  offered  a  similar  resolution  in 
the  Kentucky  legislature  this  same  year  (1  Schurz's  Clay,  51.) 


144  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

republican  leader  and  afterwards  a  bitter  opponent  of 
the  tariff,  "  to  see  our  infant  manufactures  growing  into 
importance,  and  that  the  most  successful  experiment 
has  attended  every  attempt  at  improvement."  * 

To  the  manufactures  which  sprang  up  and  flourished 
under  the  stimulus  of  embargo  and  non-intercourse,  the 
lull  in  the  storm  accompanying  the  Erskine  negotiations 
of  1809  was  full  of  danger.  In  the  joy  which  every- 
where hailed  the  renewal  of  intercourse  with  Great 
Britain  commerce  hurried  its  ships  and  merchandise 
out  of  port  without  waiting  for  the  day  formally  set  by 
the  President's  proclamation;  and  in  Congress  all  at- 
tempts to  increase  protective  duties  were  defeated,  f  But 
manufacturers  were  not  slow  to  move  along  the  strategic 
lines  of  their  position.  June  7,  three  days  before  the 
Erskine  arrangement  was  to  go  into  effect,  certain  man- 
ufacturers of  Kentucky  set  forth,  in  a  petition  to  C/m. 
gress,  that  they  had  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  linen 
since  the  passage  of  the  embargo  and  non-importation 
acts,  that  they  had  put  the  greater  part  of  their  capital 
into  machinery  and  buildings,  and  that,  while  rejoicing 
in  the  returning  sense  of  justice  in  Europe,  which 
afforded  hope  thjft  the  United  States  might  escape  the 
calamities  of  war,  they  must  be  permitted  to  state  that 
this  cause  of  national  enjoyment  would  in  all  human 
probability,  be  greatly  oppressive  to  them.  Their  estab- 
lishments had  grown  out  of  the  difficulties  with  foreign 
nations.  The  non-importation  act,  which  was  passed,  as 
they  had  always  understood,  as  much  to  change  the 
direction  of  some  of  the  national  capital  from  commerce 
to  manufacturing  pursuits  as  with  the  view  to  bring  a 

*  Senate,  Nov.  24,  1808 ;  Annals  of  10th  Congress,  2d  Session,  p.  102. 
t  5  Henry  Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  73,  81. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  145 

great  foreign  power  to  a  sense  of  justice,  by  prohibiting 
the  introduction  of  coarse  linen  and  the  like  into  the 
United  States,  had  given  being  to  their  manufactories. 
Such,  however,  was  the  superiority  of  European  capital 
and  arts,  such  the  cheapness  of  labor  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,*  such  the  aid  there  given  to  manufactures 
by  bounties  from  the  government,  such  the  obstacles 
which  an  American  manufacturer  had  to  combat  and 
overcome,  and  such  the  lessons  furnished  by  experience, 
that  the  petitioners  forbode  the  annihilation  of  their 
respective  establishments  unless  some  aid  was  afforded 
them  at  once  by  the  interposition  of  Congress.  Recall- 
ing the  proceedings  of  every  Congress  since  the  first, 
every  act,  every  declaration  had  shown  it  to  be  the  wish 
of  Congress  to  make  the  United  States  independent  of 
the  world  as  to  articles  of  first  necessity,  as  she  was  in 
her  political  rights  as  a  nation.  For  this  purpose  Con- 
gress had  laid  duties  upon  all  raw  or  manufactured 
articles  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  prohibit  their  importa- 
tion, whenever  it  was  ascertained  that  the  country  could 
produce  a  sufficiency  for  home  consumption.  Bounties 
even  had  been  granted  as  in  the  case  of  fisheries,  and 
Jefferson's  Report  of  1793  was  cited  in-favor  of  this. 

The  present  was  the  time  to  encourage  manufactures 
effectually.  If  those  which  were  already  erected  were 
suffered  to  go  to  waste,  if  those  recently  established  died 
with  the  law  which  gave  them  being,  an  age  would  pass 
away  before  other  citizens  would  embark  in  the  same 
business.  It  was  not  an  unimportant  consideration  that 


*  Perhaps  the  first  instance  where  the  manufacturers  themselves 
avowed  cheap  foreign  labor  as  a  reason  for  protection.  It  shows 
extreme  confidence  and  some  miscalculation  of  the  force  of  public 
opinion  in  their  behalf,  since  for  twenty  years  yet  the  argument  was  to 
be  effectively  used  on  the  other  side. 


146  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

the  encouragement  of  domestic  manufactures  would 
have  a  tendency  to  transplant  the  arts  and  capital  of 
Europe  to  the  United  States;  and  returning  to  the  par- 
ticular argument,  it  was  declared  that  Kentucky,  rich 
in  soil,  but  at  a  distance  from  the  seas,  was  capable  of 
producing  hemp  for  the  whole  United  States,  and  if 
sufficiently  encouraged  could  induce  farmers  to  cultivate 
it,  so  as  to  furnish  a  never-failing  resource  in  peace  or 
war.  Kentucky,  it  was  remarked,  was  subject  to  large 
drains  annually  for  United  States  lands,  owing  to  her 
proximity  to  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  large  sums  were 
annually  taken  off  for  foreign  productions;  but  protected 
as  she  was,  by  the  Union,  she  was  satisfied.  Yet — and 
the  anti-climax  revealed  the  local  bias  which  a  fine 
argument  had  covered  up — when  fishermen  East  were 
not  only  encouraged  by  protective  duties,  but  by  boun- 
ties, when,  comparatively  speaking,  no  public  moneys 
were  expended  in  the  State,  Kentucky  would  be  better 
pleased  to  be  indemnified  for  these  disadvantages  by 
some  encouragement  of  her  industry.* 

The  repudiation  of  the  Erskine  arrangement  by  the 
English  government  and  the  consequent  partial  repair- 
ment  of  the  Chinese  wall  of  embargo,  fortunately  for 
the  manufacturers,  obviated  the  necessity  of  bringing 
their  demands  to  an  immediate  trial  before  Congress. 
They  did  not,  however,  intend  to  lose  any  advantage 
already  gained. f  As  has  already  been  noted,  Seybert 

*  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions  (Appendix),  pp.  2170- 
2173. 

t  At  the  opening  of  Congress  in  Dec.  1809,  Sawyer  of  North  Carolina 
introduced  a  resolution  to  create  a  separate  Committee  on  Manufactures, 
alleging  that  one  Committee  could  not  properly  attend  to  two  such 
subjects  as  commerce  and  manufactures,  and  asserting  that  the 
subject  of  manufactures  ought  to  engage  the  undivided  energies  of  the 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  147 

of  Pennsylvania  secured  the  reprinting  of  Hamilton's 
Report  on  Manufactures,  and  a  report  covering  similar 
ground  from  Gallatin.*  The  chief  significance  of  Galla- 
tin's  report  lay  in  the  great  progress  that  he  was  able  to 
show  had  been  made  within  a  few  years.  The  total 
annual  product  of  American  manufactures  had  reached 
a  hundred  and  twenty  million  dollars,  of  which  forty 
millions  were  credited  to  household  manufactures,  twenty 
millions  to  leather,  twenty  millions  to  wood,  twelve  to 
fifteen  millions  to  iron,  and  ten  millions  each  to  hats 
and  spirits.  Nearly  three  times  as  many  boots  and 
shoes  were  exported  as  imported,  ten  times  as  many 
candles,  and  five  times  as  much  soap.  From  1791 
to  1808  the  number  of  cotton  mills  in  the  country  had 
increased  from  1  to  15,  working  8000  spindles.  In  the 
next  two  years  the  number  of  mills  rose  to  87,  and  by 
the  beginning  of  1811  Gallatin  estimated  that  80,000 
spindles  would  be  in  operation.  The  increase  in  carding 
and  spinning  had  been  four-fold  during  the  preceding 
two  years.  The  principal  obstacle  to  the  extension  of 
the  manufacture  was  the  want  of  wool,  which  was  still 
deficient  in  quality  and  quantity;  but  these  defects  were 
daily  and  rapidly  lessened  by  the  introduction  of  merino 
and  other  superior  breeds  of  sheep.  Two-thirds  of  the 
clothing  used  in  the  United  States  outside  of  the  cities 
was  of  household  manufacture.  Paper  mills  were  in 
every  part  of  the  Union,  and  a  great  part  of  the  con- 
sumption was  of  home  manufacture. 

The    most    prominent    causes    which    impeded    the 
introduction  and  retarded  the  progress  of  manufactures, 

best  talents  of  the  House.    Only  twenty-four  members  voted  for  the 
resolution,  and   the   separate  Committee  was  not  created  until  1820 
(H.R.Dec.  4  and  12,  1809. 
*  Supra,  p.  138. 


148  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

Gallatin  found  to  be  the  abundance  of  land  com- 
pared with  population,  the  high  price  of  labor, 
and  the  want  of  sufficient  capital.  The  superior 
attractions  of  agricultural  pursuits,  the  great  exten- 
sion of  American  commerce  during  the  late  Amer- 
ican wars,  and  the  continuance  of  habits  after  the 
causes  which  produced  them  had  ceased  to  exist,  might 
also  be  enumerated.  Several  of  these  obstacles  had, 
however,  been  removed  or  lessened.  The  cheapness  of 
provisions,  had  always  to  a  certain  extent  counter-bal- 
anced the  high  price  of  manual  labor;  and  this  now,  in 
many  important  branches,  was  nearly  superseded  by  the 
introduction  of  machinery.  A  great  American  capital 
had  been  acquired  during  the  last  twenty  years;  and  the 
injurious  violations  of  neutral  commerce,  by  forcing 
industry  and  capital  into  other  channels,  had  broken 
inveterate  habits  and  given  a  general  impulse,  to  which 
must  be  ascribed  the  great  increase  of  manufactures 
during  the  two  last  years.  No  cause,  perhaps,  had  more 
promoted  in  every  respect  the  general  prosperity  of 
the  United  States,  than  the  absence  of  those  sys- 
tems of  internal  restrictions  and  monopoly  which  con- 
tinued to  disfigure  the  state  of  society  in  other 
countries.  "It  is  believed  that,  even  at  this  time, 
the  only  powerful  obstacle  against  which  American 
manufactures  have  to  struggle,  arises  from  the  vastly 
superior  capital  of  the  first  manufacturing  nation 
of  Europe,  which  enables  her  merchants  to  give  very 
long  credits,  to  sell  on  small  profits,  and  to  make  occa- 
sional sacrifices."  * 


*  Cf.  statement  of  Prof.  R.  E.  Thompson  in  the  Penn  Monthly,  Sept. 
1874  (p.  653) :  "  The  day  will  come,  if  we  have  the  wisdom  to  persist, 
when  we  will  be  as  independent  of  tariffs  to  protect  the  great  staples  of 


COMMERCE    VERSUS   MANUFACTURES.  149 

The  information  he  had  obtained,  Gallatin  explained, 
was  not  sufficient  to  warrant  his  submitting,  in  conform- 
ity to  the  request  of  the  House,  the  plan  best  calculated 
to  promote  American  manufactures.  The  most  obvious 
means,  he  said,  were  bounties,  increased  duties  on  im- 
ports, and  loans  by  government.  Occasional  premiums 
might  be  beneficial,  but  prohibitive  duties  were  liable  to 
the  treble  objection  of  destroying  competition,  taxing 
the  consumer,  and  diverting  capital  and  industry  into 
channels  generally  less  profitable  to  the  nation  than 
those  which  would  naturally  have  been  pursued  by 
individual  interest  left  to  itself.  A  moderate  increase 
would  be  less  dangerous,  and  if  adopted,  should  be  con- 
tinued during  a  certain  period;  for  the  repeal  of  a  duty 
once  laid  materially  injured  those  who  had  relied  on  its 
permanency,  as  had  been  exemplified  in  the  salt  manu- 
facture. Since,  however,  the  comparative  want  of  cap- 
ital was  the  principal  obstacle  to  the  introduction  and 
advancement  of  manufactures  in  America,  it  seemed 
that  the  most  efficient  and  most  obvious  remedy  would 
consist  in  supplying  that  capital.  "  The  United  States 
might  create  a  circulating  stock  bearing  a  low  rate  of 
interest,  and  lend  it  at  par  to  manufacturers,  on  princi- 
ples somewhat  similar  to  that  formerly  adopted  by  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  in  their  loan  offices.  It  is 
believed  that  a  plan  might  be  devised  by  which  five 
millions  a  year,  but  not  to  exceed  twenty  millions, 

manufacture,  as  the  tides  are  of  Parliamentary  or  Congressional  legis- 
lation. .  .  .  But  until  the  capital  of  our  country  has  grown  to  such 
power  and  can  afford  to  make  such  sacrifices  as  that  of  England,  it  will 
not  be  either  wise  or  fair  to  expose  it  to  the  unfair  competition,  the 
wholesale  underselling,  which  are  among  the  best  known  weapons  of 
industrial  warfare  practiced  in  modern  Christendom." 


150  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

might  be  thus  lent,  without  any  material  risk  of  ultimate 
loss  and  without  taxing  or  injuring  any  other  part  of 
the  community."* 

The  debate  far  outran  the  report,  as  indeed  it  did  not 
wait  for  it.  A  bill  was  introduced  advancing  duties,  but 
the  whole  question  became  involved  in  the  discussions 
over  non-intercourse  and  embargo,  and,  as  far  as  protec- 
tion was  concerned,  finally  centered  in  an  amendment 
to  Macon's  Bill  Number  Two  increasing  duties  fifty  per 
cent.  The  advance  line  of  argument  for  the  manufac- 
turers was  thrown  out  by  Seybert,  who  brought  a  consid- 
erable battery  of  flowery  rhetoric  to  support  his  position. 
The  tack  taken  was  quite  the  opposite  of  that  followed 
by  the  Kentucky  memorialists  of  the  previous  year. 
Instead  of  finding  in  every  act  of  Congress  since  the 
first  an  evident  attempt  to  encourage  manufactures,  he 
declared  that  while  Congress  had  lavished  many  millions 
annually  upon  a  rotten  and  inefficient  naval  establish- 
ment, while  it  had  established  discriminating  duties  in 
favor  of  merchants,  which  amounted  to  a  bounty  for 
their  encouragement,  and  had  incurred  an  enormous 
annual  expense  to  keep  up  its  diplomatic  intercourse 
with  foreign  nations;  while  it  was  paying  tribute  to 
barbarians  in  support  of  foreign  commerce,  and  for  this 
same  commerce,  was  risking  the  peace,  honor,  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  nation,  it  had  at  the  same  time,  refused 
a  justifiable  aid  to  another  class  equally  deserving 
its  notice  and  fostering  care.  He  was  no  enemy  to 

*  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions  (Appendix),  pp.  2223- 
2239.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  this  last  proposition  of  Gallatin  with 
the  petition  of  one  Amelung,  a  glass  manufacturer,  who,  in  1790,  asked 
Congress  for  a  loan  of  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  main 
objection  was  that  such  a  loan  would  be  unconstitutional  (2  Annals  of 
1st  Congress,  1686-1688.) 


COMMERCE    VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  151 

commerce,  but  he  regarded  it  as  far  less  necessary  to 
national  independence  than  a  well-regulated  manufac- 
turing system.  The  United  States  should  manufacture 
to  secure  its  independence,  whereas  abroad  they  man- 
ufactured because  they  were  dependents.  At  the  present 
time,  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  the  nation  was  in  favor 
of  manufactures.  This  might  not  always  be  the  case. 
They  ought  to  take  advantage  of  the  present  temper  and 
disposition  of  the  people  and  adopt  such  branches  as 
would  promote  the  agriculture  of  the  country.  He  did 
not  wish  the  government  to  create  manufactories — only 
to  protect  such  as  seemed  requisite  from  the  peculiarity 
of  the  times,  and  such  as  were  consistent  with  the 
nature  of  the  climate,  soil,  habits,  and  necessities  of  the 
people.  They  should  not  look  to  the  supplying  a  foreign 
market  for  centuries  to  come.  Still,  if  they  could  count 
upon  a  constant  and  free  commerce,  and  demand  for 
their  agricultural  productions  in  Europe,  they  might 
perhaps  adopt  less  zeal  in  the  promotion  of  manufac- 
tures. 

Done  with,  theoretical  concessions,  Seybert  was  very 
positive  as  to  the  practical  course  to  be  taken.  In  the 
main  he  enforced  Hamilton's  general  argument,  with 
some  modifications  adapted  to  the  turn  of  debate.  Man- 
ufactures need  not  prejudice  agriculture  because  almost 
everywhere  in  the  United  States  there  was  a  sufficient 
number  of  persons  too  young  or  too  old  for  laborious 
employments  who  might  without  prejudice  to  agricul- 
ture or  commerce,  be  well  employed  in  manufactories. 

Instead  of  regarding  the  high  price  of  labor  as  an 
argument  for  protection,  he  declared  that  he  should  pay 
no  attention  to  the  clamor  which  had  been  raised. 
"Experience  has  taught  me,"  he  said,  "that  it  is 


152  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

unfounded,  and  that  very  little  difference  exists  here  as 
to  the  price  paid  for  labor,  and  that  of  the  same  kind  in 
England.  .  .  .  Intelligent  workmen  who  have  come 
from  Great  Britain  assert  that  from  four  to  six  shillings 
sterling  can  be  earned  per  day  abroad,  when  for  work 
done  of  the  same  kind  they  at  most  obtain  one  dollar  in 
this  country."  Besides,  those  situations  where  living  is 
cheap  were  always  selected  for  manufactories.  Wheat 
was  fifty  cents  a  bushel  in  Kentucky,  as  against  two 
dollars  in  England,  beef  two  dollars  and  a  half  per  cwt. 
in  Kentucky,  and  a  shilling  a  pound  in  England. 
Indeed,  the  United  States  could  manufacture  so  cheap 
as  to  warrant  a  profit  on  exportation  to  Europe,  even 
should  all  the  processes  be  effected  by  manual  labor. 

It  might  very  well  be  asked  if  labor  stood  on  such 
equality  with  the  labor  of  Europe,  and  in  all  other 
respects  Americans  had  such  decided  advantages,  so 
that  manufactures  could  even  be  exported  to  Europe  at 
a  profit,  why  protection  was  needed.  Seybert  forestalled 
such  an  objection  by  a  statement  still  in  vogue  eighty 
years  afterward:  "  Unless  protected  for  a  time,  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  our  manufactures  can  compete  with 
the  enormous  capital  which  foreigners  can  command, 
especially  when  connected  with  their  skill  and  experi- 
ence. Foreigners  do  all  they  can  to  destroy  our  infant 
establishments.  They  conspire  and  sell  their  articles 
for  a  loss  for  a  time  in  our  markets — when  they  have 
obtained  their  object  by  putting  a  stop  to  our  efforts, 
they  raise  their  prices  and  furnish  us  with  articles  of  an. 
inferior  quality.  They  do  not  stop  here,  but  resort  to  a 
system  of  deception,  which  could  hardly  be  imagined. 
As  soon  as  our  establishments  furnished  our  markets 
with  a  supply  of  excellent  fabrics,  the  agents  of  foreign 


COMMERCE    VERSUS    MANUFACTURES.  153 

manufactures  procured  patterns  of  such  as  were  most 
esteemed.  These  they  with  every  possible  haste  dis- 
patched to  Europe,  in  order  to  have  imitations  as  to 
appearance,  but  very  inferior  in  quality — afterward  sold 
as  American  fabrics  at  reduced  prices."  * 

He  regretted  the  difference  of  opinion  between  differ- 
ent sections  of  the  Union.  The  South  was  opposed  to 
additional  duties  because  it  considered  their  operation 
partial  and  oppressive.  It  did  not  possess  the  capital 
and  requisite  population  to  establish  manufactures,  and 
in  this  respect  the  Northern  States  had  the  advantage. 
Seybert  held  that  the  statement  was  not  conclusive. 
Duties  were  laid  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  South, 
and  those  who  preferred  foreign  articles  must  in  common 
pay  duty  upon  them.  But  suppose  the  Northern  man- 
ufacturer should  sell  to  the  South;  in  consequence  of 
the  increasing  number  of  establishments  the  home  arti- 
cles would,  in  a  short  time,  be  as  cheap,  if  not  cheaper, 
than  they  could  now  be  imported.  The  inconvenience 
to  the  planter  would  be  temporary,  while  he  would 
always,  from  the  nature  of  things,  possess  the  advantage 
of  supplying  the  North  with  raw  materials.  We  should 
not  too  closely  view  our  immediate  local  interests  when 
we  were  to  legislate  on  great  national  questions.  He 
favored  the  system  because  those  who  were  most  com- 
petent to  judge  declared  that  protection  from  the  gov- 
ernment was  absolutely  necessary  in  many  instances. 
It  was  the  mode  which  all  foreign  nations  had  adopted. 
He  was  perfectly  willing  that  the  protecting  measures 
should  continue  only  for  a  reasonable  time,  so  that  there 

*The  guileless  Yankee  is  here  made  to  appear  in  a  very  helpless 
condition.  Cf.  infra,  p.  187,  note,  where  at  least  he  assumes  a  more 
natural  role. 


154  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

might  be  some  stability  in  the  system  to  enable  it  to 
compete  perfectly  against  foreigners.  Our  manufactur- 
ing establishments  must  be  regarded  as  so  many  infants 
who  needed  a  mother's  care  to  bring  them  to  maturity; 
then  they  would  be  the  most  certain  guarantees  of  our 
liberty.* 

Lyon  of  Kentucky  was  even  more  pronounced  as  to 
the  simplicity  of  tariff  laws.  He  knew  that  whatever 
extra  price  was  paid  for  manufactures  would  be  a  sacri- 
fice for  the  nation's  good.  This  sacrifice  would  be  a 
mere  trifle,  of  but  short  duration.  The  difficulties  of 
competition  with  regard  to  many  articles  had  been 
already  overcome,  and  the  American  manufacturer 
needed  no  extra  duties  to  protect  him.  "  When  we  have 
continued  our  duties  long  enough  to  enable  our  man- 
ufacturer to  withstand  the  strong  current  against  him, 
occasioned  by  the  credit  given  by  foreign  capitalists,  if 
the  competition  for  sale  among  the  American  manufac- 
turers does  not  bring  the  articles  to  a  proper  level  with 
regard  to  price,  we  can  lower  or  take  off  duties."  The 
freight,  insurance,  and  duty  on  raw  materials,  profits  of 
exporter  and  importer  of  raw  material,  carriage  of  raw 
material  to  the  place  of  manufacture,  export  duties,  and 
the  like,  were  all  in  the  nature  of  a  bounty  to  the 
American  manufacturer,  "which  cannot  fail  after  he  is 


*  H.  R.  April  18, 1810;  Annals  of  10th  Congress,  pp.  1891-1900. 

The  peroration  gave  a  glowing  picture  of  the  natural  resources  of 
the  country  and  its  adaptability  to  a  '  judicious  manufacturing  system ', 
closing  with  a  reminder  that  he  did  not  wish  to  convert  the  people  into 
a  nation  of  manufacturers ;  he  merely  asked  for  the  introduction  of  a 
•ystem  that  would  confirm  their  independence,  make  them  respected 
abroad,  promote  agriculture,  bring  the  genius  of  the  people  into  oper- 
ation, reveal  the  immense  resources  of  the  country,  and  make  every 
individual  of  the  nation  happy,  respected,  and  independent. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  155 

fairly  set  on  his  legs  to  be  ample  encouragement." 
Contrary  to  Seybert,  he  saw  no  reason  why  slaves  could 
not  manufacture,  and  declared  that  there  was  "  nothing 
but  pride,  a  perverse  bias,  prejudice,  apathy,  and  indo- 
lence, to  prevent  the  great  good  which  the  manufactur- 
ing system,  on  a  moderate  scale,  would  do  in  this  nation, 
and  more  particularly  the  southern  and  western  part  of 
it."  * 

The  counter  argument  was  largely  defensive,  though 
not  lacking  in  spirit.  Key  of  Maryland  declared  that 
he  was  a  friend  to  manufactures  and  would  have  them 
progress  pari  passu  with  agriculture  and  commerce;  but 
he  would  never  foster  one  in  a  hotbed  at  the  expense  of 
the  other.  The  reason  why  they  could  send  raw  mate- 
rials abroad  to  be  manufactured  was  because  they  had 
land  to  cultivate,  and  agriculture  was  more  congenial  to 
the  habits  of  the  American  people  than  manufactures.! 

If  the  purpose  of  the  bill  was  revenue,  rather  than  saddle 
his  constituents  with  a  tax  to  encourage  manufactures, 
Macon  of  North  Carolina  would  vote  for  a  direct  tax. 
"What  does  this  system  go  to?  To  this:  that  you  will 
go  on  by  tax  on  tax  until  you  manufacture  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States  everything  that  can  there  be 
raised  for  the  purpose  of  manufacture.  This  may  be  a 

*  H.  R.  April  18, 1810;  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions, 
pp.  1900-1902. 

Richard  M.  Johnson  of  Kentucky  supported  the  proposed  regulations 
because  they  would  lessen  importation  from  Great  Britain  and  France, 
beget  habits  of  economy,  and  destroy  those  ancient  ties  of  commerce 
which  threatened  to  enslave  them  (H.  R.  April  18,  1810;  Annals  of 
llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions,  pp.  1909-1912).  Cf.  speech  of  Clay 
in  Senate,  April  6  (5  Clay's  Works,  7). 

t  H.  R.  April  18, 1810;  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions, 
p.  1905. 


\ 


156  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

good  thing  to  the  part  of  the  country  which  will  be  the 
manufacturing  part.  They  may  laugh  and  sing;  but  to 
the  part  that  will  never  manufacture  it  will  be  death. 
The  latter  may  wring  their  hands  and  cry,  but  in  vain; 
for  once  but  get  the  manufacturing  mania  fixed  on  the 
nation,  and  we  shall  be  saddled  with  it  as  long  as  the 
nation  exists."  * 

Admitting  that  manufactures  were  really  necessary, 
the  question,  asserted  Kennedy,  also  of  North  Carolina, 
was  whether  they  should  have  them  by  taxing  other 
classes  of  society,  or  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
without  taxation.  He  had  always  thought  that  regula- 
tions of  a  government  which  diverted  labor  from  its 
usual  and  ordinary  channel  were  an  injury  to  individ- 
uals and  a  manifest  loss  to  the  nation;  the  people  in  all 
countries  knew  their  own  interest  best,  and  when  left 
unshackled  by  their  government  would  pursue  that  kind 
of  business  which  yielded  them  most  clear  profit.  The 
United  States  were  agricultural  rather  than  manufactur- 
ing because  of  their  extensive  tracts  of  waste  land. 
Less  capital  was  required  in  agriculture  and  the  profits 
were  greater,  even  when  manufactures  had  the  advan- 
tage of  transportation,  freight,  and  from  15  per  cent  to 
20  per  cent  duty — and  this  was  owing  altogether  to  the 
high  price  of  labor  in  the  United  States.  If  this  were 
not  true,  and  the  high  price  of  labor  presented  no  imped- 
iment to  competition  with  European  manufactures,  then 
it  followed  of  course  that  American  manufactures  needed 
no  encouragement  from  the  government. 

He  firmly  believed,  he  said,  that  they  would  never  be 
able  to  manufacture  as  cheaply  as  Europe  until  they  were 


*  H.  R.  April  10, 1810;  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions, 
p.  1845. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  157 

almost  as  thickly  settled  and  consequently  as  nearly 
miserable  as  Europe  was.  Some  thought  the  new  policy 
would  prevent  us  from  getting  into  contact  with  the 
belligerent  powers  of  Europe;  but  he  would  ask  what 
was  to  be  done  with  our  surplus  produce  ?  Others 
thought  we  should  be  enabled  to  supply  ourselves  with 
certain  articles  essential  in  time  of  war;  but  why  raise 
duties  generally  ?  "  But,  it  is  said,  that  when,  by  en- 
couragement, the  manufactories  get  into  operation,  they 
will  be  able  to  make  out  without  this  aid  from  the 
government,  and  that  the  duties  may  be  taken  off.  Sir, 
I  have  no  faith  in  this  doctrine.  It  may  serve  to  amuse 
and  deceive,  but  never  will  be  realized.  Once  raise  the 
duties  and  common  experience  will  teach  you  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  remove  them/-  * 

As  to  results,  however,  everything  waited  the  uncer- 
tain issue  of  foreign  difficulties.  Meanwhile  the  protec- 
tionist position  was  more  boldly  and  more  tensely  thrust 
forward  as  the  struggle  seemed  to  turn  upon  the  question 
whether  commerce  or  manufactures  should  be  favored 
by  the  government.  A  petition  from  Lexington,  Ken- 
tucky, communicated  to  the  Senate  January  22,  1811, 
raised  the  issue  between  commerce  and  manufactures 
and  appealed  for  a  share  of  public  encouragement. 
From  the  beginning,  the  petition  declared,  Congress 
had  shown  a  predilection  for  commerce,  while  little  had 
been  done  for  the  internal  industry  of  the  country.  The 
revenue  system  had  indeed  afforded  some  partial  protec- 
tion; but  the  system  appeared  to  have  been  calculated 
only  for  the  purposes  of  revenue,  and  no  act  had  been 

*  H.  R.  April  10,  1810 ;  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  1st  and  2d  Sessions, 
pp.  1847-55.  Cf.  remarks  of  Telfair  of  Georgia,  H.  R.  April  3,  1816; 
infra,  p.  175. 


158  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

adopted  with  the  view  of  encouraging  domestic  manufac- 
tures. On  the  contrary,  commerce  had  met  with  its 
exclusive  attention  and  support.*  So  far  from  con- 
demning the  policy  toward  commerce  the  petitioners  felt 
upon  such  subjects  as  Americans  should,  and  only  com- 
plained because  the  protection  and  encouragement  of 
industry  had  not  been  made  universal  and  extended  to 
every  pursuit  known  to  the  country. 

The  unnatural  extension  of  commerce  brought  about 
by  the  wars  since  the  French  Revolution,  could  not  be 
depended  on,  and  steps  should  be  taken  to  direct  the 
capital  to  home  industry  and  so  provide  a  market  when 
the  foreign  market  was  gone.  No  pursuit,  agriculture 
excepted,  was  so  productive  as  manufactures.  The 
manufacturer  worked  up  our  raw  material  and  consumed 
our  provisions;  what  he  earned  was  kept  at  home  and 
almost  immediately  circulated  again.  The  merchant 
was  by  no  means  so  useful;  part  of  his  gains  were  sent 
abroad,  and  part  paid  to  the  foreigner. 

Only  Congress,  it  was  urged,  could  effectually  encour- 
age manufactures.  "  The  American  manufacturer  is  at 
present  poor;  he  has  buildings  to  erect,  workmen  to 
teach,  and  powerful  prejudices  to  overcome;  his  limited 
capital  often  makes  it  necessary  for  him  to  force  markets, 
while  his  opponent  can  wait  for  or  command  one  at 
pleasure.  Indeed,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  foreigner 
will  purposely  seek  opportunities  to  depress  markets,  in 

*  "To  prove  this,  let  us  refer  to  the  immense  sums  that  have  been 
expended  in  the  fortification  of  the  seaports ;  to  the  establishment  of  a 
navy ;  to  the  expenditures  occasioned  by  our  intercourse  with  foreign 
nations ;  to  the  duties  which  have  been  laid  on  foreign  tonnage ;  to  the 
bounties  which  protect  the  fisheries ;  to  the  credits  given  to  merchants 
at  our  custom-houses ;  and  in  fine,  to  the  many  sacrifices  which  have 
been  made  to  commerce."  2b. 


COMMERCE    VERSUS   MANUFACTURES..  159 

order  to  remove  the  American  out  of  his  way.  Such 
have  often  been  the  effects  of  jealousy  of  trade."  Im- 
posts laid  for  the  encouragement  of  manufactures  were 
but  taking  from  one  pocket  what  was  abundantly  repaid 
to  the  other.  Whatever  gave  life  to  the  domestic  indus- 
try of  the  country  benefited  every  man  in  it.  "  When 
the  domestic  manufacturer  shall  have  acquired  experi- 
ence, and  his  laborers  are  completely  instructed  in  their 
business;  and  when  by  industry  and  success,  he  shall 
have  acquired  capital  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  extend 
his  business,  the  natural  effect  will  be  to  reduce  his 
prices  to  a  very  moderate  profit;  and  lower  often  than 
what  the  same  article  could  be  afforded  for  from  abroad." 
Whether  this  protection  should  be  afforded  by  bounties, 
or  by  prohibitive  or  protective  duties,  or  in  whole  or  in 
part  by  loans,  as  recommended  by  Gallatin,  the  petition- 
ers did  not  presume  to  point  out.  But  as  capital  was 
much  wanted  they  would  suggest  that  a  combination  of 
these  might  be  attended  with  salutary  results.* 

The  question  of  increased  duties  was  promptly  brought 
forward  on  the  assembling  of  Congress  in  November, 
1811.  But  weightier  measures  had  first  to  be  attended 
to.  Tho  paralysis  which  the  Jefferson  policy  of  peace 
at  any  price  had  laid  upon  the  country  was  at  last  over- 
come, and  under  the  leadership  of  younger  men  the 
country  regained  its  moral  tone.  War  was  finally  de- 
clared June  18, 1812.  This  act  had  already  been  pre- 
ceded by  an  embargo  which  showed  war  to  be  inevitable, 
and  a  bill  to  double  duties  had  kept  pace  with  other 
preparations.  This  last  measure  was  put  on  its  final 

*  Petition  of  Lewis  Sanders  and  one  hundred  and  twelve  others, 
citizens  of  Lexington,  Kentucky;  Annals  of  llth  Congress,  3d  Session, 
(Ajpendix)  pp.  1275-1281. 


160  THE    TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

passage,  in  the  House  June  22,  in  the  Senate  June  29, 
and  received  the  President's  signature  July  1. 

All  other  causes  leading  to  the  exaltation  of  the 
protective  system  were  small  compared  to  the  ex- 
traordinary growth  of  manufactures  during  the  war. 
Non-intercourse  was  practically  complete,  and  under 
the  stimulus  of  a  ready  home  market  and  ad- 
vanced prices,  with  the  government  itself  a  large 
purchaser,  capital  turned  itself  into  manufacturing 
plants  with  Astonishing  rapidity.  The  papers  teemed 
with  notices  of  new  manufactories.*  Statistics  are  not 
available  and  estimates  vary  greatly,  hut  the  growth  was 
unprecedented.  In  1810,  according  to  Niles,  there  was 
not  a  single  cotton  spindle  in  operation  in  Baltimore; 
three  years  later  there  were  9,000.  f  More  than  thirty 
charters  were  granted  to  manufacturing  companies  in 
1813,  in  New  York  State  alone,  and  as  many  more  in 
Massachusetts  the  following  year.  \  In  1815  there  were 
a  hundred  and  forty  cotton  manufactories  in  the  vicinity 
of  Providence,  R.  I.,  operating  130,000  spindles.§  Wil- 
mington, Del.,  had  thirty  cotton  manufactories.  Pitts- 
burg,  Steubenville,  Cincinnati,  Lexington,  Ky.,  Roches- 
ter, and  many  other  places  either  sprang  into  existence 
during  this  period  or  received  an  extraordinary  impulse 
forward.!  The  number  of  cotton  spindles  in  operation 

*  See  5  Niles,  380. 

1  5  Niles,  207.  A  different  version  is  given  in  2  Bishop,  198,  where  it 
is  said  that  there  were  9000  spindles  in  operation  in  Baltimore  in  1810. 

t  2  Bishop,  198,  207. 

§  Circular  letter  of  the  Cotton  Manufacturers  of  Providence,  dated 
Oct.  20,  1815;  9  Niles,  190.  But  see  a  lower  estimate  quoted  in 
Taussig,  p.  28. 

|]  See  6  Niles,  207-210;  8  Niles,  141,  233,  249,  452;  9  Niles,  35;  also  2 
Bishop. 


COMMERCE  VERSUS  MANUFACTURES.  161 

in  the  United  States,  which  had  increased  from  3,000  in 
1798  to  only  20,000  in  1808,  was  now  estimated  at  500,- 
000,  employing  $40,000,000  capital,  100,000  workmen, 
and  paying  $15,000,000  wages  yearly.*  The  same  esti- 
mate placed  the  capital  employed  in  the  woolen  manu- 
facture at  $12,000,000,  with  50,000  workmen,  and  an 
annual  product  of  $19,000,000.  f  The  total  value  of 
domestic  manufactures,  estimated  in  1810  by  Gallatin  at 
$120,000,000,  was  placed  by  Tench  Coxe,  in  1813,  at 
$200,000,000,  and  grew  rapidly  larger.  J 

Much  of  this  enormous  expansion  was  due  to  the  ad- 
vance in  prices,  which  also  accounts  for  a  large  part  of 
the  additional  value  of  manufactured  products.  Thus 
wool  rose  in  price  from  seventy-five  cents  to  four  dollars 
per  pound,  and  cloth  from  eight  to  fourteen  and  even 
eighteen  dollars  per  yard.  Hyson  tea  advanced  fifty  per 
cent,  white  Havana  sugar  half  as  much,  while  salt  rose 
from  fifty-five  cents  to  three  dollars  per  bushel.  Wages 
in  like  manner  increased  from  twenty  to  fifty  per  cent.§ 

Prejudice  against  domestic  fabrics  seemed  about  to 
disappear.  Governors  in  their  annual  messages  began 
to  notice  these  new  manufacturing  establishments  and 
to  speak  of  them  in  congratulatory  terms.  ||  The  war 
itself  took  a  decidedly  industrial  turn.  In  spite  of  the 


*  Report  of  Committee  on  Commerce  and  Manufactures,  Feb.  13, 
1816;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  1st  Session,  pp.  960-967.  But  see  a 
much  lower  estimate  quoted  in  Taussig,  p.  28;  there  is  also  a  lower 
contemporary  estimate  of  capital  and  workmen  employed,  in  8  Niles, 
233. 

t  See  2  Bishop,  214,  225. 

J  See  2  Bishop,  191. 

§  See  2  Bishop,  178,  179.  Cotton  alone  fell  owing  to  the  loss  of  the 
foreign  market. 

||  See  Niles.    The  South,  however,  was  silent. 


162  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

waste  and  expense,  and  almost  unbroken  disaster,  pros- 
perity was  general  and  the  land  resounded  with  the  hum 
of  industry  and  improvement.  Commerce  alone  was 
sullen  and  in  ruins;  but  commerce  by  an  opposition  as 
unpatriotic  as  it  was  ill-timed  was  sealing  its  own  fate. 
Almost  unconsciously  the  idea  grew  that  the  struggle 
was,  after  all,  not  so  much  for  "  free  trade  and  sailor's 
rights,"  as  for  industrial  independence.  New  England 
protesting  against  the  war  was  told  that  her  people  must 
be  weaned  from  their  commercial  intercourse  with 
England  before  they  could  possess  any  generous  Amer- 
ican feeling.  Complaining  of  the  exorbitant  prices 
charged  for  domestic  manufactures,  they  were  reminded 
that  if  Massachusetts,  under  foreign  influence,  had  not 
committed  the  gross  political  blunder  of  discountenanc- 
ing manufactures  thousands  of  her  artisans  and  mechan- 
ics might  have  been  retained  and  rendered  unnecessary 
hundreds  of  the  establishments  then  springing  up  as  by 
magic  in  the  Middle  and  Western  States.*  In  the  peace 
negotiations  all  those  commercial  and  maritime  rights 
for  which  embargo  and  war  had  been  risked  were  silently 
abandoned;  and  when  the  British  sloop  Favorite  sailed 
into  New  York  Harbor  late  one  Saturday  night  in  April, 
1815,  bearing  news  of  Jackson's  victory  at  New  Orleans 
and  of  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace, f  the  bells 
which  pealed  out  the  twice  glad  tidings  proclaimed,  not 
indeed  the  triumph  of  "  free  trade  and  sailor's  rights," 
but  the  supremacy  of  Nationalism  'and  the  dawn  of  a 
new  industrial  era. 


*  3  Niles,  328 ;  5  ib.  3.  "  We  must  look  not  to  the  tape-sellers  of  our 
seaports,  but  to  the  independent  farmers  and  .manufacturers  for  repub- 
lican virtue.  It  is  they  who  feel  they  have  a  country"  (9  JSiles,  174). 

t  See  6  Hildreth,  565. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    AMERICAN    SYSTEM. 

The  return  of  peace  at  the  beginning  of  1815  brought 
the  manufacturers  face  to  face  with  a  serious  danger. 
War  had  been  their  harvest  time.  Favored  by  double 
duties  and  abnormal  conditions  their  industry  had 
attained  a  marvelous  though  not  always  safe  develop- 
ment. To  many  of  these  new  enterprises,  solely  the 
result  of  unnatural  stimulus,  not  yet  deeply  rooted  or 
wisely  administered,  the  renewal  of  old  relations  with 
Europe  meant  instant  destruction.  By  limitation,  the 
double  duties  were  to  expire  one  year  after  the  conclu- 
sion of  peace,  and  unless  Congress  intervened  promptly 
and  effectually  their  individual  ruin  was  certain. 

Apparently  there  was  little  to  fear.  Unable  as  they 
were  to  bear  competition  in  the  open  market,  the  strug- 
gle for  government  intervention  was  no  longer  to  be 
waged  by  a  few  weak  industries.  The  manufacturing 
interest  had  become  important  and  powerful,  alive  to  its 
needs,  and  ready  to  take  its  part  in  legislation  rather 
than  to  humbly  petition  an  indifferent  legislature.  More 
than  all  else,  the  country  had  taken  a  new  attitude 
toward  manufactures.  The  only  actively  hostile  section 
— New  England — was  thoroughly  discredited  by  its  dis- 
loyal attitude  during  the  war.  The  indifference  and 
hostility  of  the  South  was  disarmed.  Holding  the  scales 

(163) 


164  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

more  evenly  than  the  impetuous  manufacturing  centers 
of  the  North,  resisting  what  it  deemed  unnecessary 
demands,  the  South  yet  stood  out  generously  in  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  new  Nationalism,  in  the  persons  of 
Lowndes,  Cheves,  Calhoun,  Crawford,  and  others,  pre- 
pared to  place  upon  a  firm  basis  the  manufactures  which 
war  had  called  into  being.  Wholly  aside  from  the  ordin- 
ary question  of  protection  the  argument  for  these  was 
irresistible.  They  were  the  one  material  and  tangible 
result  of  the  war,  and  to  suffer  them  to  perish  through 
British  competition  was  to  surrender  all  that  had  been 
gained.  From  suffering  and  mortification,  as  Dallas 
put  it,  had  sprung  the  means  of  future  safety  and  inde- 
pendence, in  those  manufactures  which  private  citizens, 
under  favorable  auspices,  had  constituted  the  property 
of  the  nation. 

This  new  manufacturing  interest  began  early  to  fortify 
itself  against  the  return  of  peace.  As  new  industries 
sprang  up,  petitions  were  promptly  laid  before  Congress 
praying  for  new  duties,  for  the  permanence  of  the  war 
duties,  and  for  certain  prohibitions.*  When,  after  the 
war  began,  merchants  asked  for  a  remission  of  the 
bonds  given  on  recent  importations  of  British  goods, 
they  were  sharply  told  that  at  a  time  when  the  people 
were  fighting  for  commerce  and  free  trade,  no  class  of 
citizens  could  be  licensed  to  carry  on  a  trade  with  the 
enemy.  The  time  had  come  for  acting  with  energy. 
Non-importation,  embargo,  and  non-intercourse  had 
been  too  weak  because  the  mercantile  class  were  strong,  f 


*  See  2  Bishop,  190,  205 ;  Annals  of  12th  Congress,  p.  1521  (Speech  of 
Mitchell,  H.  R.  June  22,  1812) ;  ib.  13th  Congress,  p.  2006  (H.  R.  April 
9,  1814). 

t  Speech  of  R.  M.  Johnson,  H.  R.  Dec.  3,  1812;  Annals  of  12th  Con- 
gress, 2d  Session,  p.  224. 


THE  AMERICAN  SYSTEM.  165 

An  attempt  was  made  in  1814  to  secure  a  new  tariff 
"conformably  to  the  existing  situation  of  the  general 
and  local  interests  of  the  United  States,"  *  and  the  par- 
tial suspension  of  non-intercourse  in  the  interest  of 
revenue,  as  well  as  the  repeal  of  the  embargo,  were 
resisted  as  hostile  to  the  manufacturing  interest,  f 

In  laying  before  Congress  the  treaty  of  peace,  Febru- 
ary, 1815,  Madison  called  attention  to  the  l  unparalleled 
maturity  '  attained  by  manufactures,  and  '  anxiously 
recommended  this  source  of  national  independence  and 
wealth  to  the  prompt  and  constant  guardianship  of 
Congress. 'I  This  recommendation  was  repeated  in  his 
annual  message  in  December  of  the  same  year,  though 
in  more  guarded  phrases.  In  adjusting  the  duties  on 
imports  to  the  object  of  revenue,  the  influence  of  the 
tariff  on  manufactures  would,  he  said,  necessarily  pre- 
•sent  itself  for  consideration.  However  wise  the  theory 
which  would  leave  to  the  sagacity  and  interest  of  indi- 
viduals the  application  of  their  industry  and  resources, 
Madison  went  on  in  his  own  stereotyped  phrases,  there 
were  in  this,  as  in  other  cases,  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule.  And  further  than  these  phrases  he  did  not  get.§ 

But  it  was  not  to  Madison  that  Congress  or  the  coun- 
try looked  for  direction.  The  acquiescence  of  the  Pres- 
ident was  enough.  To  Dallas,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
the  manufacturers  had  already  turned.  Six  days  after 
the  treaty  of  peace  was  ratified,  the  House,  February  23, 
1815,  called  upon  Dallas  to  report  a  general  tariff  bill  at 
the  next  session  of  Congress.  In  making  up  his  reply 

*  See  Kesolution  of  Ingham,  H.  R.  April  5,  1814. 
t  See  Annals  of  12th  Congress,  2d  Session,  pp.  1062-10G5,  1091;  ib. 
13th  Congress,  p.  1988  (H.  R.  April  7,  1814). 
i  1  Statesman's  Manual,  326. 
$  1  Statesman's  Manual,  331. 


166  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

the  Secretary  was  not  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  fears  and 
wishes  of  the  manufacturers.  Two  days  after  the  adop- 
tion of  the  resolution  just  referred  to,  Seybert  presented 
a  petition  from  Philadelphia  which,  while  setting  forth 
the  joy  and  exultation  with  which  the  petitioners  were 
filled,  for  the  inestimable  blessing  of  honorable  peace, 
expressed  also  their  anxiety  and  dread  for  the  fate  of 
the  infant  manufactures  '  whose  existence  and  prosper- 
ity were  of  vital  import  to  the  whole  community/  Yet 
they  looked  forward  with  hope  to  the  permanent  estab- 
lishment of  such  manufactures  as  should  render  the 
United  States  independent  of  foreign  nations  for  the 
necessaries  and  comforts  of  life.*  This  petition  was  an 
earnest  of  many  more  and  of  addresses  and  newspaper 
appeals,  setting  forth  with  more  or  less  definiteness  the 
measures  which  it  behooved  Congress  to  adopt.  A  cir- 
cular letter  from  the  cotton  manufacturers  of  Provi-« 
dence,  R-.  L,  dated  October  20,  1815,  declared  that  their 
mills  had  been  erected  at  great  expense,  on  account  of 
the  interruption  of  commerce  and  in  reliance  on  the 
favorable  disposition  of  the  government  toward  domestic 
manufactures.  Already  the  pressure  had  been  so  great 
as  to  force  many  to  contract  their  business  and  some  to 
suspend  entirely.  The  present  free  and  unrestricted 
admission  of  cotton  fabrics  of  foreign  production  not 
only  extinguished  the  hope  of  a  reasonable  profit  in  the 
future,  but  threatened  the  speedy  destruction  of  the 
establishments  already  erected.  It  was  suggested  that 
the  cheap  cottons  of  India  be  prohibited  and  the  duties 
on  those  of  coarse  texture  from  other  parts  of  the  world 
increased.  As  to  the  favorite  maxim  of  some  that  com- 
merce should  be  free  and  unrestricted,  it  might  be  a 


*  Annals  of  13th  Congress,  vol.  iii,  p.  1195. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  167 

good  general  rule,  but  it  was  far  safer  to  follow  in  the 
beaten  track  of  successful  experience.  All  manufactur- 
ing nations  protected  their  citizens,  and  especially  in 
England  had  this  policy  been  crowned  with  unexampled 
success.* 

In  his  annual  report  in  December,  1815,  Dallas  had 
proposed  the  extension  of  the  double  duties  until  June 
30,  1816,  in  order  to  give  time  for  the  elaboration  of  a 
new  tariff  bill;  and  after  some  discussion  Congress 
agreed  to  this  plan.  February  13  he  transmitted  his 
reply  to  the  resolutions  of  the  previous  February,  closing 
with  a  carefully  prepared  schedule  of  new  tariff  rates. 
This,  after  being  worked  over  in  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee,  was  embodied  in  a  bill  and  introduced  into 
the  House  March  12  by  Lowndes  of  South  Carolina. 
Debate  began  March  20  and  continued  until  April  8, 
when  the  bill  was  finally  passed  by  a  vote  of  88  to  54. 
April  20  it  passed  the  Senate  with  some  amendments, 
and  April  27  received  the  approval  of  Madison. 

In  drawing  up  his  tariff  bill  Dallas  set  before  himself 
three  objects:  To  secure  the  necessary  revenue,  to  con- 
ciliate the  interests  of  agriculture,  manufactures,  trade, 
and  navigation,  to  render  the  collection  of  duties  con- 
venient, equal,  and  certain.  The  interests  of  agricul- 
culture,  he  said,  stating  the  general  problem,  required  a 
free  and  constant  access  to  a  market  for  its  staples,  and 
a  ready  supply  on  reasonable  terms  of  the  articles  of  use 
and  consumption.  But  the  national  interest  might 
require  the  establishment  of  a  domestic  in  preference  to 
a  foreign  market  and  the  employment  of  domestic 
instead  of  foreign  labor  in  furnishing  the  necessary 

*  9  Niles,  19J.  For  further  tariff  movements  see  Nilea  Register  passimt 
2  Bishop,  and  -Appendices  to  Annals  of  13th  and  14th  Congresses. 


168  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

supplies.  There  were  few  if  any  governments  which 
did  not  regard  the  establishment  of  domestic  manufac- 
tures as  a  chief  object  of  public  policy.  Certainly  the 
United  States  had  always  so  regarded  it,  though  it  was 
emphatically  during  the  period  of  the  restrictive  system 
and  of  war  that  the  importance  of  domestic  manufac- 
tures became  conspicuous  to  the  nation,  and  made  a 
lasting  impression  upon  the  mind  of  every  statesman 
and  patriot.  The  weapons  and  munitions  of  war,  the 
necessaries  of  clothing,  and  the  comforts  of  living  were 
at  first  but  scantily  provided.  The  American  market 
seemed,  for  a  while,  to  be  converted  into  a  scene  of  gam- 
bling and  extortion.  But  out  of  these  circumstances  of 
suffering  and  mortification  had  sprung  the  means  of 
future  safety  and  independence.  Whatever  might  be 
said  in  favor  of  the  maxim  that  individuals  should  be 
left  free  to  follow  their  own  employment,  it  was  sufficient 
to  observe  that  American  manufactures,  particularly 
those  introduced  during  the  restrictive  system  and  the 
war,  owed  their  existence  exclusively  to  the  capital, 
skill,  enterprise,  and  industry  of  private  citizens.  The 
demand,  when  cut  off  from  foreign  supplies,  was  a  suffi- 
cient inducement  for  this  investment  of  capital;  but 
this  inducement  must  fail  when  the  day  of  competition 
returned.  Upon  that  change  in  the  condition  of  the 
country  the  preservation  of  the  manufactures  which 
private  citizens,  under  favorable  auspices  had  consti- 
tuted the  property  of  the  nation,  became  a  consideration 
of  general  policy,  to  be  resolved  by  a  recollection  of  past 
embarrassments,  by  the  certainty  of  an  increased  diffi- 
culty of  reinstating,  upon  any  emergency,  the  manufac- 
tures allowed  to  perish  and  pass  away,  and  by  a  just 
sense  of  the  influence  of  domestic  manufactures  upon 


THE   AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  169 

the  wealth,  power,  and  independence  of  the  government. 
There  were  three  classes  of  manufactures  to  be  consid- 
ered. First,  those  firmly  and  permanently  established 
and  which  wholly  or  almost  wholly  supplied  the  demand. 
Upon  these  duties  might  be  freely  imposed  wholly  or 
nearly  to  prohibition  without  endangering  a  scarcity  in 
the  supply,  while  the  competition  among  the  domestic 
manufactures  would  sufficiently  protect  the  consumer 
from  exorbitant  prices.  By  imposing  low  duties,  impor- 
tation would  be  encouraged  and  revenue  increased;  but 
without  adding  to  the  comfort  or  deducting  from  the 
expense  of  the  consumer,  the  consumption  of  the  domes- 
tic manufacture  would  be  diminished  in  an  equal  degree, 
and  the  manufacture  itself  perhaps  entirely  supplanted. 
Second,  manufactures  which  recently  or  partially  estab- 
lished did  not  at  present  supply  the  demand,  but  which 
with  proper  cultivation  could  be  made  to  do  so.  These 
were  a  more  embarrassing  class,  but  Dallas  thought  it 
in  the  power  of  Congress,  by  a  well-timed  and  well- 
directed  patronage,  to  place  them  in  a  very  short  time 
upon  the  footing  on  which  manufactures  of  the  first 
class  had  been  so  happily  placed.  The  sacrifice  could 
not  be  either  great  or  lasting.  The  agriculturist  whose 
produce  and  whose  flocks  depended  upon  the  fluctuations 
of  a  foreign  market,  would  have  no  occasion  eventually 
to  regret  the  opportunity  for  a  ready  sale  for  his  wool  or 
his  cotton  in  his  own  neighborhood,  and  it  would  soon 
be  seen  that  the  success  of  American  manufactures, 
which  tended  to  diminish  the  often  excessive  profit  of 
imported  articles,  did  not  necessarily  add  to  the  price  of 
articles  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer.*  The  amount  of 

*  There  is  here  the  common  but  gratuitous  assumption  of  a  perfect 
competition  within,  among  American  manufacturers,  and  a  very  imper- 
fect competition  without,  among  English  manufacturers. 


170  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

duties  must  be  such  as  to  allow  the  manufacturer  to 
meet  the  importer  in  the^American  market  upon  equal 
terms.  Third,  manufactures  so  slightly  cultivated  as  to 
leave  the  demand  almost  wholly  dependent  upon  the 
foreign  supply.  The  only  question  was  to  adjust  the 
rates  to  the  revenue  required,  except  that  raw  materials 
coming  under  this  classification  should  be  free.* 

The  features  of  Dallas'  proposed  tariff  were  the  enlarg- 
ing of  the  ad  valorem  list  from  three  groups  at  12£,  15, 
and  20  per  cent  to  eight  groups  at  7i,  15,  20,  22,  28,  30, 
and  33^-  per  cent;  the  increase  of  specific  duties  by  about 
42  per  cent;  and,  most  important  of  all,  in  the  article  of 
coarse  cottons,  the  insertion  of  a  minimum,  by  which,  as 
far  as  the  custom-house  was  concerned,  no  quality  was 
to  be  regarded  as  costing  less  than  25  cents  per  square 
yard.  Except  in  the  case  of  coarse  cottons  the  new  rates 
on  articles  which  it  was  desired  to  protect  fell  slightly 
below  the  double  rates  of  the  war.  f 

Three  positions  were  brought  out  in  debate — two 
extremes,  seeking  the  formulation  of  economic  reasons 
:  for  and  against  the  policy  of  protection,  and  a  middle 
party,  composed  mainly  of  men  indifferent  to  manufac- 
turing as  such,  but  accepting  the  establishment  of  man- 
ufactures as  one  of  the  chief  results  of  the  war.  The 
conservation  and  preservation  of  the  manufactures 
already  established  became  therefore  a  national  duty, 
and  it  was  to  these  men,  high  in  the  counsels  of  the 

*  As  to  other  means  of  protection  recommended  by  Hamilton  and 
Gallatin,  Dallas  dismissed  the  matter  by  the  statement  that  "  the  policy 
of  the  government  seems  to  have  been  to  encourage  by  protective  duties 
rather  than  by  bounties  and  premiums";  and  the  question  was  never 
revived  until  the  session  of  1890. 

t  For  Dallas'  Report,  see  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  1st  Session, 
(Appendix)  pp.  1674-1698. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  171 

Republican  party,  that  the  shaping  of  the  new  tariff  was 
committed. 

The  two  extremes,  however,  were  far  from  taking  the 
positions  assumed  later  by  extreme  protectionism  and 
extreme  laissez-faire.  Self-interest  on  the  part  of  the 
manufacturers  prompted  a  pretty  comprehensive  scheme 
of  protective  duties,  but  their  outlook  was  after  all  very 
modest.*  Household  manufactures  were  still  of  great 
and  increasing  importance.  The  prejudice  against 
manufacturing  centers  as  derogatory  to  health,  morals, 
and  intelligence,  was  still  strong.  Now  and  for  many 
years  it  was  common  for  even  the  most  enthusiastic 
friends  of  manufactures  to  disclaim  any  intention  of 
introducing  a  system  of  manufacturing.  As  Niles 
phrased  it,  they  wanted  to  accomplish  the  sublime  inde- 
pendence of  the  new  world  by  relying  chiefly  on  household 
manufactures.!  Protectionists  indeed  rejected  the  idea 
that  factory  life  was  detrimental  to  health  or  morals,  or 
that  encouraging  manufactures  would  depress  any  other 

*  The  extent  and  meaning  of  the  industrial  revolution  brought  about 
by  the  great  inventions  was  not  perceived. 

t  9  Niles,  2;  see  also  12  ib.  34,  268;  Annals  of  15th  Congress,  1st  Ses- 
sion, pp.  84-89  (Speech  of  Sanford  of  New  York,  Senate,  January  7, 1818.) 

"  Let  no  one  imagine  that  a  general  system  of  manufactures  is  now 
proposed  to  be  introduced  into  the  United  States.  We  would  be  under- 
stood as  limiting  our  view  to  the  manufactures  already  established ;  to 
save  those  which  have  not  already  fallen,  from  the  ruin  which  threatens 
them."  (Memorandum  of  the  Oneida  Manufacturing  Society,  January 
7, 1818;  13  Niles,  39,8-401).  Clay's  ideal  of  an  American  home  was  the 
well  regulated  family  of  a  farmer ;  where  every  member  of  the  family 
was  clad  with  the  produce  of  their  own  hands,  and  where  the  spinning 
wheel  and  the  loom  were  in  motion  by  day-break :  the  opposite  exam- 
ple, the  house  of  a  man  who  manufactured  nothing  at  home  and  whose 
family  resorted  to  the  store  for  everything  they  consumed  (5  Clay's 
Works,  226;  speech  on  Protection  in  1820).  This  was  Jefferson's  idea 
of  manufactures  to  the  last  (see  5  Jefferson's  Works,  583,  et  passim.) 


172  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

industry;  but  their  strongest  position  was  the  insistence 
upon  making  permanent  what  the  nation  had  encour- 
aged them  to  undertake  in  time  of  war. 

The  opposite  extreme  did  not  base  itself  on  any  con- 
sistent theory  of  laissez-faire.  The  policy  of  "  let  alone  " 
was  commended,  but  it  was  rather  as  representatives  of 
the  hitherto  powerful  merchants  and  commercial  classes 
that  its  champions  protested  against  the  unjust  discrim- 
inations of  tariffs,  expounded  the  evil  effects  of  manufac- 
turing, and  held  up  the  delights  of  bucolic  pursuits. 
There  was,  finally,  no  party  divisions,  and  the  moderates 
and  protectionists  meeting  on  the  common  ground  of 
making  permanent  the  results  of  the  war,  arranged  what 
at  the  time  was  regarded  as  a  satisfactory  solution  of 
the  problem. 

The  opposition  to  the  tariff  of  1816  found  its  extreme 
voicing,  so  far  as  the  imperfectly  reported  debates  show, 
in  Telfair  of  Georgia  and  John  Randolph.  Randolph, 
responsible  to  no  one  and  in  his  most  querulous  mood, 
talked  for  110  purpose  of  influencing  the  bill,  yet  with  a 
keenness  of  perception  that  anticipated  the  controversy 
of  rnany  years  afterwards.  Taking  up  a  remark  of 
Sheffey  that  the  case  of  the  manufacturers  was  not  fairly 
before  the  House,  he  declared  that  it  could  never  be 
fairly  before  the  House;  it  must  always  come  unfairly, 
"not  as  a  spirit  of  health,  but  as  a  goblin  damned." 
Protective  duties  amounted  to  nothing  but  a  system  of 
bounties  to  manufacturers  in  order  to  encourage  them 
to  do  what,  if  it  were  advantageous  to  do  at  all,  they 
would  do,  of  course,  for  their  own  sakes;  "a  largess  to 
men  to  exercise  their  own  customary  callings  for  their 
own  emolument;  and  government  devising  plans  and 
bestowing  premiums  out  of  the  hard  working  cultivator 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  173 

of  the  soil  to  mould  the  productive  labor  of  the  country 
into  a  thousand  fantastic  shapes;  barring  up  all  the  time 
for  that  perverted  purpose,  the  great,  deep,  rich  stream 
of  our  prosperous  industry."  "  I  will  buy  where  I 
can  get  manufactures  cheapest;  I  will  not  agree  to  lay  a 
duty  on  the  cultivators  of  the  soil  to  encourage  exotic 
manufactures;  because,  after  all,  we  should  only  get 
worse  things  at  a  much  higher  price,  and  we,  the  culti- 
vators of  the  country,  would  in  the  end  pay  for  all.  Sir, 
I  am  convinced  that  it  would  be  impolitic  as  well  as 
unjust  to  aggravate  the  burdens  of  the  people  for  the 
purpose  of  favoring  the  manufacturers;  for  this  govern- 
ment created  and  gave  power  to  tCongress  to  regulate 
commerce  and  equalize  duties  on  the  whole  United 
States,  and  not  to  lay  a  duty  but  with  a  steady  eye  to 
revenue.  .  .  .  The  manufacturer  is  the  citizen  of 
no  place  or  any  place.  .  .  .  Even  without  your  aid 
the  agriculturist  is  no  match  for  him.  Alert,  vigilant, 
enterprising,  and  active,  the  manufacturing  interest  are 
collected  in  masses,  and  ready  to  associate  at  a  moment's 
warning  for  any  purpose  of  general  interest  to  their 
body.  Do  but  ring  the  fire-bell  and  you  can  assemble 
all  the  manufacturing  interest  in  fifteen  minutes."* 
Later,  in  the  debate  on  Lowndes'  bill,  he  characterized 
the  tariff  as  a  scheme  of  public  robbery,  f  and  moved  its 
postponement  to  the  following  December,  in  the  belief, 
as  he  said,  that  the  subject,  originally  not  properly  and 
maturely  prepared  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  had 
been  precipitated  through  the  House,  and  hinting  at  a 
mysterious  connection  between  it  and  the  bank  bill.  J 

*  H.  R.  Jan.  16, 1816;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  pp.  686-688  (debate 
on  proposal  to  extend  double  duties  to  June  30). 

t  H.  K.  April  4, 1816. 

*  H.  R.  April  8,  1816. 


174  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

Telfair  declared  that  incidental  protection  was  well 
enough,  but  in  the  present  discussion  the  encourage- 
ment of  manufactures  was  placed  in  the  foreground  and 
admitted  to  be  the  principal  object  for  which  so  enor- 
mous a  tax  was  to  be  laid  upon  the  people.  As  to  the 
claim  that  the  action  of  the  government  had  been  in  the 
nature  of  a  pledge  to  the  manufacturers,  he  called  atten- 
tion to  the  infinite  order  of  pledges  to  which  such  a 
system  would  give  rise.  Other  interests  suffered  by  the 
war.  The  manufacturers  exhibited  no  particular  state- 
ments, but  in  general  called  for  duties  amounting  almost 
to  prohibition.  Congress  had  not  been  advised  of  the 
expenses  of  establishing  manufactories,  of  the  price  of 
labor,  of  the  cost  of  raw  material,  of  the  profits  now 
enjoyed,  or  necessary  in  order  to  outlive  the  storm.  In 
a  word,  all  articles  foreign  and  domestic  were  to  be  made 
dear  to  the  consumer  merely  that  the  manufacturer 
might  have  a  profit  upon  his  capital.  Was  the  agricul- 
ture of  th3  country,  he  asked,  in  a  condition  sufficiently 
thriving  to  make  this  sacrifice  ?  After  having  advanced 
in  prosperity  and  improvement  far  beyond  the  march  of 
any  other  nation  on  the  globe,  in  the  same  period  of 
time,  they  were  now  called  upon  to  reject  the  admon- 
itions of  experience,  and  adopt  a  part  of  the  very  policy 
which  was  congenial  to  the  people  of  Europe  because  it 
denoted  the  absence  of  all  ideas  of  self-government. 
They  were  about  to  abjure  that  principle  which  was 
peculiarly  their  own,  and  the  offspring  of  freedom,  of 
leaving  industry  free  to  its  own  pursuit  and  regulation. 
The  extent  of  territory,  exuberance  of  soil,  genius  of 
the  people,  principles  of  their  political  institutions,  had 
decreed,  as  a  law  of  nature,  that  for  years  to  come  the 
citizens  of  America  should  obtain  their  subsistence  from 


THE   AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  175 

agriculture  and  commerce.  Their  circumstances  were 
totally  different  from  the  crowded  countries  of  Europe. 
"  Because  monopolies  have  for  ages  become  familiarized 
to  them,  are  we  to  disregard  the  evidence  in  favor  of  an 
unshackled  pursuit  of  our  own  interest,  and  in  despite 
of  the  warning  voice  of  these  very  nations,  which  attests 
the  ruinous  effects  of  such  a  policy  upon  every  principle 
held  sacred  by  the  friends  of  freedom,  are  we  to  give  aid 
to  a  favorite  class  of  the  community  by  a  tax  upon  the 
rest  ?  "  Manufactures,  like  banks,  had  grown  up  while 
war  gave  a  feverish  heat  to  the  political  atmosphere. 
How  would  they  control  the  mighty  combination  to 
which  such  a  policy  as  had  been  advocated  would  give 
rise  ?  Would  they  open  the  flood  gates  and  let  in  the 
ocean  of  foreign  goods  threatening  to  overwhelm  them  ? 
Certainly  not;  and  yet  this  would  be  the  only  corrective 
left  them.* 

Much  of  this  was  too  foreign  to  the  general  current  of 
discussion  to  receive  any  consideration  at  the  time. 
There  was  no  very  close  examination  of  schedules,  but 
various  points  were  emphasized  by  Webster,  then  of 
New  Hampshire,  Ward  of  Massachusetts,  and  others — 
mostly  in  the  way  of  a  running  fire  upon  what  appeared 
most  vulnerable  in  the  argument  of  the  majority.  In 
the  debate  on  the  repeal  of  the  embargo  in  1814,  Web- 
ster had  declared  himself  a  friend  to  manufactures,  but 
as  not  in  haste  to  plant  Sheffields  and  Birminghams  in 
America.  He  was  not  anxious,  he  had  said,  in  grandiose 
phraseology,  "  to  accelerate  the  approach  of  the  period 
when  the  great  mass  of  American  labor  shall  not  find 
its  employment  in  the  field;  when  the  young  men  of 
the  country  shall  be  obliged  to  shut  their  eyes  upon 

*  H.  R.  April  3,  1816. 


176  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

external  nature,  upon  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and 
immerse  themselves  in  close  and  unwholesome  work- 
shops; when  they  shall  be  obliged  to  shut  their  ears  to 
the  bleatings  of  their  own  flocks,  upon  their  own  hills, 
and  to  the  voice  of  the  lark  that  cheers  them  at  the 
plow,  that  they  may  open  them  in  dust,  and  smoke,  and 
steam,  to  the  perpetual  whir  of  spools  and  spindles,  and 
the  grating  of  rasps  and  saws."  It  was  the  true  policy 
of  the  government  to  suffer  the  different  pursuits  of 
society  to  take  their  own  course,  and  not  to  give  exces- 
sive bounties  or  encouragements  to  one  over  another.* 
In  the  present  discussion,  however,  he  confined  himself 
closely  to  the  details  under  consideration,  seeking  to 
modify  and  restrain  the  more  pronounced  features  of 
the  bill. 

The  manufacturer's  position,  carefully  stated  by  Dallas, 
had  been  more  vigorously  urged  in  a  special  report  from 
the  Committee  on  Commerce  and  Manufactures,  Newton 
of  Virginia  chairman,  submitted  the  same  day  as  Dallas' 
report.  Emphasis  was  laid  upon  the  foreigner's  recog- 
nition of  the  importance  of  what  was  at  stake,  and  the 
special  and  redoubled  efforts  he  would  make  to  crush 
American  manufactures.  Once  struck  down,  the  gov- 
ernment might  indeed  relent,  but  could  it  raise  the  dead 
to  life  ?  Competition  would  make  the  price  low,  and 
the  extension  of  manufactories  in  the  United  States 
would  secure  such  competition.!  Richard  M.  Johnson 
of  Kentucky  emphasized  the  statement  that  citizens  had 
turned  their  capital  into  domestic  manufactures  not 
subject  to  the  control  of  foreign  nations,  and  hence 
there  was  a  moral  obligation  upon  the  government  to 

*  H.  R.  April  6, 1814;  Annals  of  13th  Congress,  pp,  1971-1973. 
t  H.  K.  Feb.  13,  1816;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  pp.  960-967. 


THE    AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  177 

give  reasonable  protection  to  them.  Upon  this  subject, 
he  said,  the  mind  must  expand  and  act  upon  a  policy 
enlarged  and  liberal.* 

Ingham  of  Pennsylvania,  afterward  Jackson's  first 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  declared  that  revenue  was 
only  an  incidental  consideration  and  ought  not  to  have 
any  influence  in  the  decision  upon  the  bill,  which  in- 
volved a  great  principle  of  national  policy,  and  was  not 
a  mere  contrivance  to  collect  taxes  from  the  people  in 
the  easiest  way  without  their  knowing  it.  As  to  the 
notion  that  protection  ought  to  be  confined  to  articles 
indispensable  in  time  of  war  and  of  first  necessity  in 
time  of  peace  (referring  to  Madison's  annual  message), 
it  was  a  plausible  theory,  but  not  founded  upon  sound 
policy.  In  the  first  place,  no  two  persons  would  agree 
as  to  the  articles.  Besides,  the  great  object  of  the  gov- 
ernment ought  to  be  to  promote  the  prosperity  and 
happiness  of  the  people,  because  it  surely  promoted  in 
some  degree  its  own  prosperity  and  durability.  The 
doctrine  about  first  necessity  was  fallacious.  He  advo- 
cated high  duties  because  the  more  powerful  the  stim- 
ulus the  sooner  there  would  be  a  supply  and  a  competition 
at  home. 

There  were  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  he  urged,  inde- 
pendent of  mere  cost.  European  fabrics  of  the  same 
material  had  the  advantage  in  appearance  though  not 
in  durability,  which  gained  them  a  preference,  and 
prejudice  against  domestic  fabrics  pervaded  the  coun- 
try. It  was  a  fact  that  the  paper  used  by  the  members 
of  the  House  to  enclose  their  newspapers  in,  had  the 
water  mark  of  the  British  crown  upon  it,  though  the 
paper  was  made  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  He  thought 

*  H.  B.  Feb.  2, 1816;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  p.  862. 


178  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

it  a  bounden  duty  of  Congress  to  protect  the  industry  of 
the  country  from  such  discouragements.  As  to  the 
demand  fjr  estimates  and  calculations  to  show  the 
precise  amount  of  duty  that  would  enable  the  American 
manufacturer  to  come  into  the  market  upon  equal  terms 
with  the  importer,  such  demands  were  in  their  nature 
unreasonable  and  unfair,  because  it  must  be  obvious 
that  they  could  not  be  answered  with  any  kind  of  cer- 
tainty.* 

The  mercantilism  of  the  argument  was  furnished 
mainly  by  Gold  of  New  York,  who,  after  dismissing 
Adam  Smith  with  Madison's  favorite  formula,  quoted 
liberally  from  Sir  James  Steuart  f  to  the  effect  that  a 
nation  ought  to  restrain  by  a  duty  on  importation  that 
which  might  be  produced  at  home,  and  to  manufacture 
as  much  as  possible  of  the  raw  material,  that  a  new 
manufacture  could  not  be  established  without  such  en- 
couragement, and  that  if  the  balance  of  trade  was  against 
a  nation,  it  was  her  interest  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  He 
invoked  Hamilton  as  "  one  of  the  brightest  stars  in  our 
political  hemisphere,"  and  quoted  Brougham  and  others 
to  show  the  continued  hostility  of  Great  Britain  to  the 
manufactures  of  the  United  States.  No  friend  of  his 
country,  he  said,  could  look  at  the  enormous  importation 
of  goods  the  past  year  without  concern;  a  hundred  and 
thirty  million  of  imports  from  Great  Britain  and  only 
twenty-one  millions  of  exports  to  her  !  Instead  of  there 
being  a  concert  among  manufacturers  to  raise  prices, 
competition  and  the  spirit  of  underselling  prevailed  to 
such  an  extent  that  sales  were  often  made  without  a 


*  H.  R.  March  22, 1816 ;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  pp.  1239-1247. 
t  The  last  systematic  expounder  of  mercantilism,  whose  treatise  was 
published  nine  years  before  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 


THE    AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  179 

profit.  Finally,  it  was  not  a  distinct  class  of  manufac- 
turers who  had  petitioned  for  relief,  but  almost  all 
classes,  and  principally  the  farmers,  had  embarked  in 
the  manufacture  of  woolen  and  cotton.  Let  no  one  be 
alarmed  that  a  general  system  of  manufactures  was 
about  to  be  introduced;  that  this  country  was  now  to 
attempt  the  manufacture  of  the  almost  endless  list  of 
goods  contained  in  the  importer's  invoice.  The  question 
was  simply  as  to  whether  they  would  uphold  the  present 
manufactures  of  woolen  and  cotton  against  the  inunda- 
tion of  foreign  goods.* 

Most  noteworthy  was  the  utterance  of  Calhoun  as 
showing  the  broadly  national  ground  on  which  these 
young  Southerners  based  their  support.  In  advocating 
the  loan  bill  in  1814,  Calhoun  had  taken  the  opportunity 
to  call  attention  to  the  amazing  growth  of  manufactures, 
which  of  itself,  he  said,  would  more  than  indemnify  the 
country  for  its  losses.  He  believed  no  country,  however 
valuable  its  staples,  could  acquire  a  state  of  great  and 
permanent  wealth  without  the  aid  of  manufactures.! 
His  advocacy  of  the  tariff  of  1816  was  not  without  cer- 
tain reserves  which  showed  that  he  partook  of  none  of 
the  enthusiasm  for  manufactures  that  pervaded  the 
North,  He  based  his  argument  upon  the  cautious  foun- 
dation Madison  had  laid,  and  with  a  steady  insistence 
that  the  navy,  manufactures,  and  internal  improvements 
were  alike  objects  of  national  importance  and  must 

*  H.  R.  April  3, 1816. 

t  H.  R.  Feb.  25,  1814;  Annals  of  13th  Congress,  p.  1694.  In  support- 
ing the  repeal  of  the  embargo,  however,  Calhoun  declared  that  the 
infant  manufacturing  institutions  of  the  country  would  not  be  embar- 
rassed, and  that  during  a  state  of  war  too  great  a  stimulus  was  naturally 
given  to  manufactures — a  stimulus  which  they  could  not*  expect  to  be 
continued  in  a  time  of  peace  (H.  R.  April  7,  1814). 


180  THE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

advance  with  equal  step.  Yet  within  these  limits  his 
support  was  not  halting  or  restrained,  hut  full  of  the 
generous  fervor  of  youthful  Southern  blood  fired  with 
national  patriotism,  and  as  yet  showing  not  the  slightest 
taint  of  the  leprosy  of  Nullification.  "  The  question 
relating  to  manufactures,"  he  said,  "  must  not  depend 
on  the  abstract  principle  that  industry,  left  to  pursue  its 
own  course,  will  find  in  its  own  interest  all  the  encour- 
agement that  is  necessary.  I  lay  the  claims  of  the 
manufacturers  entirely  out  of  view,  but  on  general  prin- 
ciples, without  regard  to  their  interest,  a  certain  encour- 
agement should  be  extended  at  least  to  our  woolen  and 
cotton  manufactures."  * 

Later,  in  opposing  Randolph's  motion  to  strike  out  the 
minimum  on  cottons,  Calhoun  committed  himself  more 
unreservedly.  The  debate  heretofore,  he  said,  had  been 
as  to  the  degree  of  protection  which  ought  to  be  afforded 
to  the  cotton  and  woolen  manufactures,  all  professing  to 
be  friendly  to  those  infant  establishments  and  to  be  wil- 
ling to  extend  to  them  adequate  encouragement.  But 
Randolph's  motion  was  introduced  on  the  ground  that 
manufactures  ought  not  to  receive  any  encouragement 
whatever, thus  leaving  our  cotton  establishments  exposed 
to  the  competition  of  the  East  Indies,  which  everyone 
acknowledged  they  could  not  successfully  meet  without 
the  proposed  minimum  duty.  He  favored  protection  on 
the  broad  ground  that  it  was  connected  with  the  security 
of  the  country.  War  interrupted  commerce  and  agricul- 
ture, both  depending  on  foreign  markets.  Without 
commerce,  industry  would  have  no  stimulus;  without 
manufactures,  it  would  be  without  the  means  of  produc- 
tion; and  without  agriculture  neither  of  the  others  could 

*  H.  K.  Jan.  31, 1816;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  p.  837. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  181 

subsist.  When  our  manufactures  were  grown  to  a  cer- 
tain perfection,  as  they  soon  would  be  under  the  fostering 
care  of  the  government,  we  would  no  longer  experience 
these  evils.  The  farmer  would  find  a  ready  market  for 
his  surplus  produce;  and  what  was  almost  of  equal 
consequence,  a  certain  and  cheap  supply  of  all  his 
wants.  To  give  perfection  to  this  state  of  things,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  add  as  soon  as  possible  a  system 
of  internal  improvements,  and  at  least  such  an  extension 
of  the  navy  as  would  prevent  the  cutting  off  of  the 
coasting  trade. 

To  the  objection  that  the  country  was  not  prepared 
for  manufactures,  he  could  not  yield  for  a  moment;  on 
the  contrary,  he  firmly  believed  that  the  country  was 
prepared  even  to  maturity.  A  prosperous  commerce 
had  poured  an  immense  amount  of  commercial  capital 
into  the  country,  which  until  lately  had  found  occupation 
in  commerce;  but  the  state  of  the  world  which  brought 
this  about  had  passed  away  never  to  return.  This 
capital  would  not  be  idle,  it  must  find  a  new  direction, 
and  what  channel  could  it  take  but  that  of  manufactures? 
Besides,  the  greatest  difficulty  had  already  been  sur- 
mounted. The  restrictive  measures  of  the  war,  though 
not  intended  for  that  purpose  had,  by  the  necessary 
operation  of  things,  turned  a  large  amount  of  capital  to 
this  new  branch  of  industry.  He  had  often  heard  it 
said,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  that  this  effect  alone 
would  indemnify  the  country  for  all  its  losses. 

What  then  was  the  necessity  of  protection  ?  It  was 
to  put  manufactures  beyond  the  reach  of  contingency. 
Besides,  capital  was  not  yet,  and  could  not  for  some 
time,  be  adjusted  to  the  new  state  of  things.  There 
was,  in  fact,  from  the  operation  of  temporary  causes,  a 


182  TfiE    TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

great  pressure  on  these  establishments.  They  had 
extended  so  rapidly  during  the  late  war  that  many,  he 
feared,  were  without  the  requisite  capital  or  skill  to 
meet  the  present  crisis.  Should  the  present  owners  be 
ruined,  and  workmen  dispersed  and  turned  to  other 
pursuits,  the  country  would  sustain  a  great  loss.  He 
denied  that  manufacturing,  with  the  aid  of  machinery, 
destroyed  moral  and  physical  powers.  He  could  perceive 
no  such  tendency  in  manufacturing  districts,  but  the 
exact  contrary,  as  they  furnished  a  new  stimulus  and 
means  of  subsistence  to  the  laboring  classes  of  the 
community.  Another  objection,  and  one  better  founded, 
was  that  capital  employed  in  manufacturing  produced  a 
greater  dependence  on  the  part  of  the  employed,  than 
in  commerce,  navigation,  or  agriculture.  This  was 
certainly  an  evil  and  to  be  regretted;  but  it  was  not  a 
decisive  objection  to  the  system,  especially  when  it  had 
incidental  political  advantages  which,  in  his  opinion, 
more  than  counterbalanced  it.  It  produced  an  interest 
strictly  American,  as  much  so  as  agriculture,  and  in  this 
it  had  the  decided  advantage  of  commerce  or  navigation. 
Finally,  it  was  calculated  to  bind  together  more  closely 
the  widely  separated  Republic,  greatly  increasing  mutual 
dependence  and  intercourse.  He  regarded  the  fact  that 
it  would  make  the  parts  adhere  more  closely,  and  that  it 
would  form  a  new  and  most  powerful  cement,  as  far 
outweighing  any  political  objections  that  might  be  urged 
against  the  system.  In  his  opinion  the  liberty  and 
union  of  the  country  were  inseparably  united.  He  had 
critically  examined  into  the  causes  that  had  destroyed 
the  liberty  of  other  States.  There  were  none  that 
applied  to  the  United  States  or  applied  with  a  force  to 
cause  alarm.  The  basis  of  the  Republic  was  too  broad 


THE   AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  183 

and  its  structure  too  strong  to  be  shaken  by  them.  But 
let  it  be  deeply  impressed  on  the  heart  of  the  House  and 
country,  that  while  they  guarded  against  the  old  they 
exposed  themselves  to  a  new  and  terrible  danger, — 
disunion.  This  single  word  comprehended  almost  the 
sum  of  their  political  dangers;  and  against  it  they  ought 
to  be  perpetually  guarded.* 

Only  a  few  articles  occasioned  any  discussion,  and 
these  were  items  like  sugar,  cottons,  and  woolens,  which 
had  been  reduced  in  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee 
from  the  rates  proposed  by  Dallas.  Dallas  had  fixed  the 
duty  on  cottons  at  33£  per  cent,  which  was  reduced  to 
30  per  cent  in  Lowndes'  bill.  Clay  moved  to  restore  the 
original  rate,  in  order,  he  said,  to  see  how  far  the  House 
was  willing  to  go  in  protecting  domestic  manufactures — 
there  being  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  propriety 
of  the  policy  itself,  f  After  some  maneuvering,  during 
which  Lowndes  firmly  defended  the  amount  of  protection 
afforded  by  the  bill,  Clay's  motion  was  rejected  by  a  vote 
of  68  to  61.  Later  Webster  proposed  a  sliding  scale  on 
cottons,  the  rate  to  be  30  per  cent  for  two  years,  then  25 
per  cent  for  two  more,  and  then  20  per  cent.  Clay 
moved  to  amend  by  making  the  first  period  three  years 
and  the  second  one  year.  The  present,  he  said,  was  the 
time  for  encouragement,  and  his  amendment  would  give 
an  adequate  protection  at  the  time  of  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty. Lowndes  assented  to  the  motion.  He  rejoiced 
to  see  the  strongest  friends  of  the  manufacturing  interest 
the  advocates  of  a  proposition  which  would,  in  prospect, 
produce  a  return  to  correct  principles.  He  was  satisfied 

*  H.  R.  April  4,  1816;   Annals  of  14th  Congress,  1st  Session,  pp. 
1329-1336. 
i  H.  R.  March  21,  1816. 


184  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

that  25  per  cent  or  even  20  per  cent  was  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection, but  he  would  support  the  motion,  persuaded  that 
it   would   eventually   produce   the   state   of    things   he 
thought  most  desirable.     Hoot  of  New  York  thought  this 
proposition  was  worse  than  any  other;  the  manufactur- 
ing establishments  would  be  sustained  for  two  years  and 
then    left    to    their    fate.       Hulbert   of    Massachusetts 
had  consulted  with  the  manufacturers  and  found  them 
satisfied  with  Clay's  proposition.     Webster  was  informed 
that  the  manufacturers  would  be  satisfied  with  30  per 
cent  for  one  year.     He  was  not  prepared  to  say  that  the 
government  was  bound  to  adopt  a  permanent  protection. 
From  the  course  pursued  by  the  government  for  some 
years  back  the  community  had  a  right  to  expect  relief 
from  the  danger  to  which  a  sudden  change  of  circum- 
stances  exposed   manufactures.      Yet   the   government 
had  a  right  to  say  whether  that  protection  should  be 
permanent  or  not,  and  to  reduce  protective  duties  if  it 
thought  proper.     But  he  was  opposed  to  a  changing  and 
fluctuating  policy,  and  the  object  of  his  motion  was  to 
impose  a  duty  so  moderate  as  to  insure  its  permanency 
and  still  be  an  adequate  one.     Calhoun  opposed  Clay's 
amendment.     He  believed  20  per  cent  was  ample  protec- 
tion.    Webster  repeated  that  his  object  was  permanent 
protection.     Twenty  per  cent  would  exclude  India  cot- 
tons forever.     Manufacturing  establishments  could  now 
be  erected  at  two-thirds  the  cost  of  those  first  erected. 
Clay  said  the  object  of  protection  was  to  eventually  get 
articles  of  necessity  made  as  cheap  at  home  as  abroad. 
In  three  years  they  could  judge  of  the  ability  of  their 
establishments,  and  could  then  legislate  with  the  lights 
of  experience.      Ross  of    Pennsylvania  thought  20  per 
cent  enough.        He   did   not   believe   in   the   rage  for 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM. 


185 


fostering  manufactures  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other 
pursuit.  Manufacturing  had  a  tendency  to  degrade  and 
debase  the  human  mind,  and  the  only  kind  of  manu- 
factures he  wished  to  see  flourish  were  those  in  families. 
Clay's  amendment  was  negatived,  61  to  47,  and  Web- 
ster's motion  agreed  to  by  a  large  majority.* 

Considerable  friction  was  experienced  in  fixing  the 
rate  on  sugar.  Huger  of  South  Carolina,  seconded  by 
Sheffey  of  Virginia,  proposed  to  reduce  the  committee's 
rate  of  4  cents  on  brown  sugar  to  2-J-  cents.  This  was 
resisted  by  Robertson  of  Louisiana,  Forsyth,  Lowndes, 
and  Calhoun.  Forsyth  demanded  5  cents,  declaring 
that  sugar  would  be  extensively  cultivated  in  Georgia  if 
the  government  gave  sufficient  protection,  and  protesting 
with  much  warmth  against  the  injustice  of  taxing  the 
South  to  support  the  manufactures  of  the  East,  and  yet 
denying  the  South  any  security  in  return.  Gaston  of 
North  Carolina  in  opposing  the  duty  entreated  the  House 
to  consider  those  unfortunate  states  which  were  burdened, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  encourage  the  manufactures  of  the 
East,  and  taxed,  on  the  other,  to  protect  the  products  of 
the  South.  The  4  cent  rate  was  stricken  out,  62  to  55, 
and  on  motion  of  Clay  3|  cents  substituted,  64  to  58.  f 

Dallas  proposed  28  per  cent  on  woolens.  The  com- 
mittee reduced  this  to  25  per  cent,  and  following  the 
example  set  in  the  case  of  cottons,  Lowndes  moved  that 
after  two  years  the  rate  be  fixed  at  20  ,per  cent.  He 
believed,  he  said,  that  the  manufacture  of  woolens,  and 
particularly  of  blankets,  required  a  decided  present 

*  April  3,  the  rate  on  cottons  was  reduced  to  25  per  cent  for  three 
years,  dropping  then  to  20  per  cent.  The  war  duty  was  35  per  cent. 

t  H.  R.  March  23,  1816.  The  rate  was  finally  reduced  to  2  cents,  but 
raised  by  the  Senate  to  3  cents,  the  House  concurring.  The  war  duty 
was  5  ceats. 


186  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

encouragement;  and  after  receiving  that  support  his 
amendment  would  produce  the  reduction  of  duties  to  the 
correct  standard.  After  some  debate  the  first  period  was 
made  three  years,  and  Lowndes'  amendment  agreed  to.* 

The  tariff  of  1816  was  a  substantial  victory  for  the 
manufacturers.  Their  interests  were  for  the  moment 
the  concern  of  all,  and  the  unanimity  with  which  the 
measure  was  received  indicated  the  general  feeling  that 
the  problem  had  been  settled  for  all  time  by  the  conser- 
vation and  exaltation  of  manufactures.  Possibly,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  this  hope  might  have  been 
fulfilled,  though  in  any  event  the  self-interest  of  man- 
ufacturers would  have  prompted  them  to  a  continual 
extension  of  the  system.  But  what  was  necessary  for 
the  conservation  of  the  manufactures  raised  up  by  the 
war  was  but  vaguely  realized,  and  in  its  working  out  the 
tariff  of  1816  proved  a  bitter  disappointment  to  the 
manufacturing  interest.  The  causes,  however,  were 
widely  varied,  and  the  result  could  hardly  have  been 
forese'en  by  the  most  unequivocal  protectionist. 

A  part  of  the  failure  was  due  to  a  miscalculation  of 
the  obstacles  to  be  overcome.  The  abnormal  conditions 
during  the  war  had  not  been  favorable  to  careful  bus- 
iness methods.  Such  was  the  demand  for  home  man- 
ufactures, and  such  the  sudden  expansion  of  prices,  that 
as  Dallas  put  it,  the  American  market  seemed  for  a 
while  to  be  converted  into  a  scene  of  gambling  and 
extortion.  Manufacturers  were  warned  that  these  extra- 
ordinary profits  could  not  last,  that  they  must  be  careful 
and  build  their  reputations  on  substantial  goods,  f 

*  The  reduction  never  took  place,  the  act  of  April  20, 1818,  continuing 
the  rate  on  both  cottons  and  woolens  at  25  per  cent, 
t  See  6  Niles,  217.     See  also  34  Xiles  337-339. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  187 

These  warnings  were  unheeded.  Manufactories  went 
on  increasing  even  beyond  the  home  demand.  Many 
were  sanguine  enough  to  believe  that  even  without 
protection  they  were  beyond  the  reach  of  competition. 
Cotton  and  woolen  manufactures,  it  was  boastingly  said, 
would  not  be  affected  by  the  peace,  and  the  United 
States  could  even  undersell  Great  Britain.*  In  the 
nature  of  things  neither  this  sanguine  prospect,  nor 
anything  like  it  could  be  realized.  Any  considerable 
loss  of  market  meant  the  immediate  destruction,  at  least 
of  those  manufactories  built  up  on  insufficient  capital 
and  lacking  trained  workmen  and  supervision.  Nothing 
short  of  absolute  prohibition  could  have  prevented  at 
that  time  large  importations  of  British  goods.  The 
long  wars  had  pressed  heavily  upon  the  English  man- 
ufacturer and  the  return  of  peace  found  enormous 
quantities  of  goods  on.  his  hands  which  must  be  sold  at 
any  price.  Nor  could  advantage1  in  price  even  have 
saved,  temporarily,  the  home  market.  The  old  prefer- 
ence for  foreign  goods  reasserted  itself.  American  goods 
which  in  quantity  and  price  compared  favorably  with 
imported  goods  seemed  to  have  little  chance  in  the  open 
market.  Even  inferior  English  goods  crowded  out  their 
American  competitors.  \  American  merchants  were 
eager  to  import  and  American  fashion  to  buy.  Indeed, 
the  first  shiploads  from  England  were  to  supply  long 
outstanding  orders.  J 

*  See  5  Niles,  368. 

t  See  11  Niles,  386. 

$  Cf.  Speech  of  Ingham,  supra  p.  177.  Niles  tells  a  story  of  how  the 
Duponts,  extensive  cloth  manufacturers  of  Brandywine,  were  unable 
during  the  war,  to  dispose  of  their  very  superior  cloths  because  of  the 
prejudice  against  American  cloths.  They  thereupon  arranged  with  an 
English  agent  to  sell  for  them  as  though  their  goods  came  from  England. 


188  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

Yet  it  would  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  distresses  of 
the  country.  The  years  from  1816  to  1820  especially, 
were  years  of  depression  and  hard  times,  but  the  steady 
growth  of  the  country  was  hardly  interrupted.  In  the 
main  the  tariff  did  not  fail  of  its  legitimate  object.  For 
the  most  part  the  new  manufactures  were  conserved. 
True,  many  establishments  went  to  the  wall,  but,  owing 
perhaps  to  the  expected  operation  of  the  tariff,  the 
number  of  manufacturing  plants  rapidly  increased. 
Home  competition  became  sharp  and  disastrous  to  those 
unfavorably  circumstanced.  There  was  a  considerable 
fall  in  prices  due  partly  to  over-competition  and  partly 
to  the  application  of  improved  machinery,  and  so  rapid 
was  the  progress  of  invention  that  establishments  which 
could  not  afford  a  constant  replacement  of  machinery 
were  soon  hopelessly  distanced.  Nor  were  manufactures 
alone  affected.  Two  successive  years  of  bad  harvests  in 
Europe  kept  agriculture  prosperous,  but  in  1819  there 
was  a  corresponding  fall  in  the  price  of  agricultural 
products,  and  this  following  close  upon  a  financial  crisis, 
due  largely  to  mismanagement  of  the  United  States 
Bank,  made  the  stagnation  complete.* 

These  were  quickly  sold  and  at  large  prices.  Niles  makes  the  story 
into  an  idyl  by  having  the  Duponts  so  patriotic  and  eager  for  an  Amer- 
ican reputation  that  they  persisted  in  selling  their  best  cloths  under 
their  proper  name,  though  at  a  lower  price  (18  Niles,  401).  Of.  also 
15  Niles,  244,  (supplement)  87 ;  16  ib.  106 ;  24  ib.  243 ;  36  ib.  283. 

*  Some  years  afterwards  Niles  gave  this  recollection  of  the  years 
succeeding  1815 :  Thousands  of  persons  forsook  their  farms  and  work- 
shops to  become  merchants.  Whoever  could  raise  a  few  hundred 
dollars  in  cash,  hastened  to  expend  it  in  the  eastern  cities,  as  well  as  to 
exhaust  all  the  credit  that  he  could  obtain,  in  ill-advised  purchases  of 
foreign  goods.  These  were  hurried  into  the  interior  with  as  much 
promptitude  as  if  every  day's  delay  on  the  road  was  the  loss  of  a  little 
fortune — and  so  the  cost  of  transportation  was  doubled,  to  be  added 


THE   AMERICAN  SYSTEM.  189 

The  recovery,  though  necessarily  slow,  was  seen  to  be 
certain.  The  United  States  Bank  was  righted,  and 
under  the  presidency  of  Langdoii  Cheves  of  South 
Carolina  started  on  a  new  career  of  usefulness.  The 
tendency  to  hold  the  tariff  accountable  for  all  the  ills  of 
the  country  was  resisted,  especially  by  the  non-manufac- 
turers who  had  firmly  sustained,  though  with  some 
misgivings,  the  tariff  of  1816.  They  pointed  out  the 
temporary  nature  of  the  causes  of  depression,  the  sub- 
stantial resources  and  recuperative  forces  of  the  country, 
and  the  indications  of  reviving  prosperity.  In  his  last 
annual  message,  December,  1816,  Madison  noted  that 
the  depression  in  manufactures  resulted  from  an  excess 

to  [the  originally  imprudent  expenditure.  As  the  goods  were  bought 
on  credit,  they  could  be  sold  on  credit — and  who  would  wear  an  old 
coat  when  he  might  so  easily  obtain  a  new  one  at  "  the  store," — he 
could  get  credit  and  pay  "  when  convenient."  The  hum  of  the  spinning 
wheel  was  banished  and  the  sound  of  the  shuttle  no  longer  disturbed 
speculative  minds.  There  was  plenty  of  everything  because  there 
was  plenty  of  credit !  The  needless  debts  thus  created  amounted  to 
millions! — but  "  pay  day  "  came  at  last.  \e  city  merchants  pressed 
the  country  dealers,  and  they  pressed  their  customers — every  one  pulled 
and  hauled.  In  this  state  of  things  it  was  found  out  that  the  whole 
difficulty  was  caused  by  the  want  of  money !  A  "  circulating  medium  " 
was  required.  Banks  must  be  established,  and  there  was  nothing 
wanting  for  them  but  acts  of  incorporation  and  paper  mills.  The  people 
called  for  banks  and  banks  were  made ;  they  loaned  money  freely,  and 
for  a  little  season  the  oppressed,  having  by  new  credits  paid  off  some  of 
their  old  debts,  rejoiced  at  the  "  relief "  afforded.  .  .  .  But  this  did 
not  last  long.  The  bills  of  the  new-made  banks  would  not  '*  pass  "—it 
was  discovered  that  they  were  paper — mere  paper.  .  .  .  Brokers 
and  shavers  jumped  up  like  mushrooms,  and  they  gave  "  relief,"  out  cf 
sheer  kindness  to  suffering  people.  They  began  at  10  per  cent  discount 
and  ended  at  95  per  cent !  —shaving  away  the  greater  portion  of  the 
little  means  that  were  left  for  the  honest  payment  of  debts.  Banks  by 
this  time  had  obtained  judgments — sheriffs  as  busy  as  "  Old  Nick  in  a 
gale  of  wind," — and  a  general  sweep  of  ruin  was  threatened  in  several 
of  the  states.  (See  23  Mies,  81,  82.) 


190  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

of  importation  which  could  not  last  very  long,  and  in 
1819  he  declared  that  the  evil,  though  severe,  must 
gradually  cure  itself,  and  that  the  root  of  it  lay  more 
particularly  in  the  multitude  and  mismanagement  of 
the  banks.*  The  season  of  1820  he  noted  as  an  abund- 
antly fruitful  one  and  predicted  that  even  if  the  man- 
ufacturers failed  entirely  in  their  hopes  from  Congress, 
they  would  experience  much  encouragement  from  the 
cheapness  of  food,  materials,  and  labor,  f  Monroe, 
whose  opening  message  had  been  so  friendly,  J  when 
times  were  worse,  had  no  specific  recommendations  to 
make,  and  in  1821  was  convinced  that  under  the  exist- 
ing tariff  the  United  States  would  soon  become  a  man- 
ufacturing country  on  a  large  scale.  His  tone,  however, 
continued  friendly,  and  in  1823  he  felt  the  pressure  of 
the  manufacturing  interest  sufficiently  to  recommend 
"  a  review  of  the  tariff  for  the  purpose  of  affording  such 
additional  protection  to  those  articles  which  we  are 
prepared  to  manufacture,  or  which  are  more  immedi- 
ately connected  with  the  defence  and  independence  of 
the  country ;"§  but  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
Crawford,  discussed  the  tariff  wholly  with  reference  to 
revenue,  and  the  influence  of  the  administration  was 
generally  counted^as  indifferent;  if  npt  unfriendly  to  the 
interests  of  manufactures.  ||  Governors  in  their  mes- 

*  Madison  to  Rush,  May  10, 1819 ;  3  Madison's  Works,  128-131.  See 
also  ib.  265,  266. 

t  3  Madison's  Works,  181, 195. 

i  And  whom  Senator  Morrill  calls  by  "  precept  and  example,  almost 
a  fanatic  as  to  the  policy  of  encouraging  American  manufactures" 
(Senate,  December  8, 1881.) 

§  1  Statesman's  Manual,  458. 

I!  See  20  Niles,  370-374;  21  ib.  325,  326;  also  speech  of  Clay,  1824: 
"The  executive  government,  if  any,  affords  us  but  a  cold  and  equivocal 
support"  (5  Clay's  Works,  294.) 


THE   AMERICAN  SYSTEM.  191 

sages,  while  complimenting  manufactures,  were  often  as 
non-committal;  *  and  Judge  Ross  struck  a  popular  chord 
when  he  declared  to  a  Pennsylvania  grand  jury  that  the 
cure  for  hard  times  was  not  in  a  loan  office,  internal 
improvements,  or  the  tariff,  but  in  simple  habits  and 
the  curtailing  of  the  extravagance  and  foolish  pride  of 
sons  and  daughters.! 

But  the  movement  was  the  other  way.  More  and 
more  there  was  a  growing  impatience  with  the  tariff  of 
1816,  and  a  tendency  to  lay  the  bad  times  upon  its 
shoulders,  a  tendency  heightened  by  the  •  success  of 
coarse  cottons,  protected  by  the  minimum  rate,  which 
eventually,  owing  to  a  fall  in  price  due  to  the  progress 
of  inventions,  etc.,  acted  as  a  complete  prohibition.  At 
first  there  was  merely  a  note  of  alarm  sounded  at  the 
continued  depression  of  manufactures  after  the  new 
tariff  had  gone  into  operation,  with  a  blind  groping 
about  for  reasons.  In  1816  Governor  John  Cotton 
Smith  of  Connecticut  declared  that  the  advantages 
confidently  expected  from  a  restoration  of  peace  had 
not  been  fully  realized.  Governor  Galusha  of  Vermont 
referred  to  the  depressed  state  of  manufactures  as  of 
serious  concern.  Governor  Dickerson  of  New  Jersey 
was  more  explicit.  The  imprudence  of  merchants,  he 
said,  had  plunged  the  country  into  new  distress  by  a 
ruinous  importation  of  European  goods,  greatly  exceed- 
ing the  means  of  payment.  Many  manufactures  had 
received  a  protection,  which,  while  not  affording  imme- 
diate relief,  gave  hope  of  final  success;  but  this  was  not 
the  case  with  all,  notably  bar  iron,  and  many  establish- 

*  See  12  Niles,  268;  15  ib.  (supplement)  45,  61. 

1 18  Niles,  321 ;  see  also  11  ib.  129,  where  Niles  comments  on  the 
alarming  progress  of  luxury. 


192  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

ments  were  already  involved  in  ruin.  Governor  and 
Vice-President-elect  Tompkins  of  New  York  deplored 
the  fact  that  establishments  for  domestic  manufactures 
should  have  been  suffered  to  be  suspended  or  even  to 
languish.  The  appeal  to  the  general  government  had 
produced  partial  relief;  but  the  utmost  exertion  of  the 
state  legislature  was  necessary  to  yield  such  further 
encouragement  as  would  place  the  domestic  manufac- 
turers on  an  equal  footing  with  the  importers  of  foreign 
merchandise.* 

Gradually  the  feeling  became  more  intense.  Lord 
Brougham  was  quoted  as  saying  in  Parliament  that  it 
was  "  well  worth  while  to  incur  a  loss  upon  the  first 
exportation  in  order  by  the  glut,  to  stifle  in  the  cradle 
those  rising  manufactures  in  the  United  States  which 
the  war  had  forced  into  existence,  contrary  to  the  nat- 
ural course  of  things'7;  and  this  bumptious  saying  was 
passed  up  and  down  as  gauging  the  economic  attitude 
of  the  English  government  and  English  capitalists 
toward  America.  While  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  it  was 
bitterly  said,  were  alive  to  their  interest,  and  making 
the  most  powerful  efforts  to  encourage  their  own  man- 
ufactures and  to  create  a  home  market  among  themselves, 
the  United  States  were  calmly  looking  on,  talking  about 
independence  and  quietly  bending  their  necks  to  the 
yoke,  being  tributary  to  England  and  relieving  her 
wants  at  the  cost  of  their  own  distress,  f 

At  the  session  of  Congress,  1816-1817,  more  than  forty 
memorials  were  received  setting  forth  the  distresses  of 
manufacturers.  A  petition  from  merchants  of  New 
York  City  pointed  out  the  sinking  condition  of  the 

*  See  11  Niles,  132,  150,  174,  181. 
1 11  Niles,  297  (editorial). 


THE   AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  193 

commercial  interest  and  declared  that  nothing  short  of 
the  protecting  arm  of  the  government  could  rescue  it 
from  ruin..  And  the  same  causes,  they  said,  were  fast 
precipitating  their  manufacturing  brethren  to  the  same 
abyss.  They  admitted  that  Congress  '  had  bestowed 
upon  this  subject  a  wise  and  liberal  consideration,  and 
had  granted  such  encouragement  as  was  by  many  then 
deemed  sufficient ';  but  this  had  proved  inadequate, 
and  they  suggested  making  permanent  the  higher  rates, 
more  stringent  revenue  laws,  a  duty  of  ten  per  cent  on 
all  auction  sales  of  foreign  goods,  and  that  the  army  and 
navy  and  all  civil  officers  use  American  fabrics.* 
Simkins  of  South  Carolina  admitted  that  the  tariff  of 
1816  meant  well,  but  declared  himself  sick  of  the 
unnecessary  foreign  predilections  and  thought  they 
should  learn  a  lesson  from  England,  f  It  was  the  true 
policy  of  every  state,  he  said,  to  encourage  and  buy  of 
its  own  citizens  every  essential  article,  as  thereby  it 
added  to  its  riches  by  keeping  its  money  at  home.  This 
was  the  true  and  unvarying  policy  of  England,  who  well 
knew  that  capital  laid  out  abroad  for  foreign  productions 
which  could  be  as  well  produced  at  home  was  forever 
lost,  both  principal  and  interest.  J  The  memorial  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Oneida  County,  New  York,  adduced  the 
testimony  of  Hamilton  and  Sir  James  Steuart  that  no 
new  manufacture  could  be  established  in  the  present 
state  of  the  world,  without  government  aid.  It  also  laid 
down  as  a  principle  of  political  economy  that  any  nation 
which  should  open  its  ports  to  foreign  importations, 

*  H.  R.  Feb.  4, 1817;  Annals  of  14th  Congress,  2d  Session,  pp.  848- 
851. 

fH.  R.,  April  14, 1818. 
$  See  also  20  Niles,  178.    Tnis  was  a  favorite  maxim  of  Niles. 


194  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

without  a  reciprocal  privilege,  would  soon  be  ruined  by 
the  balance  of  trade.*  The  legislature  of  Pennsylvania 
was  more  explicit.  It  declared  that  there  was  no  exam- 
ple in  history  of  a  manufacture  being  left  to  take  care  of 
itself,  or  of  success  unaided  by  government.  The  Com- 
mittee did  not  believe,  the  report  added  sarcastically, 
that  every  maxim  of  national  policy  was  reversed  by 
crossing  the  Atlantic,  and  they  could  see  no  good  reason 
why  the  United  States  should  not  follow  in  the  path 
lighted  by  the  experience  of  others,  f 

These  were  but  beginnings.  Under  stress  of  misfor- 
tune language  became  bolder,  the  tariff  of  1816  was 
proclaimed  a  failure,  even  intentionally  so,  and  system- 
atic efforts  were  put  forward  to  obtain  a  tariff  in  accord- 
ance with  what  their  interests  demanded.  December 
31,  1816,  the  American  Society  for  the  Encouragement 
of  Domestic  Manufactures  issued  an  address  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States  advocating  the  prompt  establish- 
ment of  societies  for  correspondence  with  itself  and  with 
each  other,  and  urging  upon  manufacturers,  agricultur- 
ists, merchants,  men  of  science,  soldiers,  and  women 
everywhere,  to  unite  in  upbuilding  American  manufac- 
tures. J  Niles  noted,  in  1817,  the  '  great  and  simultan- 
eous exertions '  then  making  to  awaken  public  attention 
to  the  subject  of  home  manufactures.  §  A  Pittsburg 
committee  on  manufactures  announced  the  utter  failure 
of  the  new  tariff,  and  disdaining  what  it  called  the 
'subtleties  of  abstract  speculatists/  declared  it  sufficient 
to  refer  to  the  practice  of  the  most  wealthy  and  powerful 

*  Senate,  Jan.  7, 1818;  Annals  of  15th  Congress,  1st  Session,  pp.  84- 
89.     (13  Niles,  398-401.) 
1 12  Niles,  39,  40. 
t  2  Bishop,  230. 
§  12  Niles,  75. 


THE  AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  195 

nations  in  the  world  as  a  test  of  the  utility  of  protective 
tariffs.*  A  joint  committee  of  the  New  York  legislature 
complained  that  the  cotton  and  woolen  manufactories  of 
the  state  were  in  a  precarious  condition,  some  prostrated 
and  others  tottering  to  the  ground,  and  that  the  duty  of 
25  per  cent,  even  if  sufficient,  was  not  of  long  enough 
duration  to  produce  confidence  in  men  of  capital,  f 
Baltimore  manufacturers  affirmed  that  the  object  of  the 
tariff  had  been  entirely  frustrated.  J  Iron  manufacturers 
of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  reported  their  interests 
as  in  a  deplorable  condition. §  Three-fourths  of  the 
cotton  and  woolen  factories  of  Oneida  County,  New 
York,  were  said  to  be  closed  permanently.  ||  From  forty 
to  sixty  thousand  workmen  were  estimated  as  having 
been  thrown  out  of  employment,  seven  thousand  in 
Philadelphia  alone. *[[  There  was  never  such  commercial 
embarrassment,  Niles  reported  in  1821,  and  in  1822, 
when  manufactures  were  depressed  and  commerce  was 
reviving,  it  was  asserted  that  the  years,  1820,  1821,  were 
years  of  convalescence,  and  that  while  the  country  was 
gradually  recovering  and  felicitating  itself  on  the  favor- 
able prospect  of  its  affairs,  this  eulogized  freedom  of 
commerce  had  once  more  come  into  operation  and 
dashed  the  cup  from  its  lips,  renewing  the  scenes  of 
1815-16.**  If  manufactures  had  been  fostered  and  pro- 
tected in  1816,  it  was  said,  we  should  have  drawn  from 


*  12  Niles,  129-135. 

1 12  Niles, -236. 

1 13  Niles,  332. 
§  14  Niles,  105. 

||  13  Niles,  398-401 . 
IT  2  Bishop,  250;  17  Niles,  116-120. 
**  20  Niles,  34;  23  ib.  42,  274. 


196  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

England  tens  of  thousands  of  her  "best  workingmen.* 
The  policy  hitherto  pursued  in  the  United  States,  which 
had  exposed  their  manufactures,  excluded  from  nearly 
all  the  markets  of  Europe,  to  an  unavailing  struggle 
with  all  the  manufactures  of  that  quarter,  was  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  the  present  calamitous  state  of  affairs. 
This  system  was  in  direct  hostility  to  that  of  every  wise 
nation  in  Europe,  and  the  tariff  of  1816  had  been  fixed 
so  low  that  it  required  but  little  sagacity  to  foresee  the 
ruin  of  manufactures.!  Finally,  it  was  boldly  asserted 
that  the  duties  under  the  tariff  of  1816  were  laid  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue.  J 

Such  a  current  could  end  logically  only  in  prohibition 
or  prohibitive  duties,  and  this  point  protectionist 
thought  soon  reached.  Jefferson's  predilection  for  a 

*  15  Niles,  420. 

1 17  Niles,  87-92. 

J  18  Niles,  170  (Editorial,  May  6,  1820).  Baldwin  made  the  same 
statement  in  the  House,  April  21,  and  Dickerson  in  the  Senate,  May  4, 
1820. 

Later  protectionists  have  been  much  puzzled  as  to  how  to  characterize 
the  tariff  of  1816.  Mallary  of  Vermont,  chairman  of  the  committee 
which  prepared  the  tariff  bill  of  1828,  declared  (H.  E.  Jan.  31, 1823) 
that  '  considering  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  the  unsettled  state  of 
public  and  private  concerns,  the  countless  interests  involved,  a  more 
prudent  measure  could  not  have  been  expected  from  human  wisdom.' 
More  recent  protectionists  have  generally  followed  Henry  C.  Carey, 
•who  referred  to  *  British  free  trade  as  established  in  1817, 1834, 1846, 
and  1857  % — a  characterization  which  would  have  been  gratifying  to 
Calhoun  and  the  other  Southern  democrats,  who  were  only  too  glad  to 
have  the  tariff  of  1816  regarded  as  a  revenue  tariff. 

As  seen  through  the  medium  of  a  presidential  campaign  this  tariff 
assumes  a  very  queer  appearance:  "In  1816  the  Democratic  party 
came  to  the  front  and,  with  its  cranky  ideas  of  economy,  repealed  the 
law  of  1789  and  1812,  very  low  duties  only  being  allowed.  Great  dis- 
tress followed  everywhere"  (Chas.  E.  Buell,  in  the  New  Haven  Palla- 
dium—quoted in  New  York  Weekly  Press,  Aug.  9,  1888). 


THE  AMERICAN   SYSTEM,  197 

Chinese  Wall  is  well  known;  and  Richard  M.  Johnson 
had  declared  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  that  it  would 
be  only  a  temporary  evil  to  cut  off  intercourse  with 
England  forever.*  It  had  not  yet  been  the  policy  of  the 
United  States,  Niles  wrote  in  1817,  either  to  prohibit  the 
import  or  export  of  anything  as  a  permanent  regula- 
tion, and  so  far  perhaps,  that  policy  had  been  a  wise 
one.  But  circumstances  altered  cases,  and  they  had  the 
unanimous  sanction  of  all  the  statesmen  of  Europe  that 
a  contrary  course  was  best  adapted  to  the  situation  of 
their  several  countries,  f  Rich  of  Vermont,  in  1820, 
submitted  to  the  House  the  '  propriety  of  prohibiting 
the  importation  of  sundry  commodities  then  allowed  to 
the  prejudice  of  a  free  and  vigorous  employment  of  the 
skill  and  capital  of  our  citizens,  and  of  fixing  upon  some 
future  period  beyond  which  the  American  manufacturer 
shall  enjoy  the  benefit  of  the  markets  of  his  own  country 
uninterrupted  by  foreign  competitors  who  owe  no 
allegiance  to  the  country,  and  who  will  neither  fight  its 
battles  nor  contribute  to  the  support  of  its  institutions.'  J 
An  examination  was  made  of  the  English  system  of 
prohibitions  and  heavy  tariffs,  of  Russian  and  German 
protection,  and  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  free  trade. 
The  English  tariff  of  85  per  cent  on  cotton,  79  per  cent 
on  earthenware,  142£  per  cent  on  leather,  and  other 

*  H.  K.  Dec.  3, 1812. 

f  12  Niles,  292. 

J  19  Niles,  331.  There  were  the  usual '  resolutions  '  indicating  a  tenge 
period,  like  that  of  the  Lycurgam  Society  of  Yale  College  pledging 
itself  to  wear  only  cloth  of  domestic  manufacture;  of  the  ladies  of 
Washington,  Penn.,  to  confine  their  apparel  to  articles  manufactured 
in  the  United  States ;  and  the  grim  parody  of  the  young  men  of  Cross 
Creek  (near  Washington,  Penn.),  who  resolved,  in  paying  addresses  to 
the  young  ladies,  to  give  the  most  marked  preference  to  those  clothed 
in  homespun  (19  Niles,  43;  21  ib.  337;  22  ib,  195.) 


198  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

high  rates,  were  compared  with  the  low  rates  in  the 
United  States,  and  it  was  declared  that  were  England  to 
abandon  her  system  and  adopt  that  of  Adam  Smith  she 
could  not  fail  in  a  few  years  to  be  reduced  to  the  level 
of  Spain  and  Portugal.  "On  a  fair  examination/'  wrote 
Matthew  Carey,  "  we  shall  bestow  the  most  unequalled 
plaudit  on  the  English  Parliament  for  the  admirable 
and  incomparable  system  it  has  devised.  We  may  fairly 
assert  without  the  least  danger  of  contradiction,  that 
there  never  existed  a  legislative  body  which  bestowed 
more  attention  on  the  solid,  substantial,  and  vital  inter- 
ests of  its  constituents,  so  far  as  respects  industry  in  all 
its  various  forms."  Great  Britain,  he  said,  although 
possessing  machinery  which  increased  her  powers  of 
manufacture  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  for  one,  did 
not  rely  on  that  for  the  protection  of  her  domestic 
industry,  but  interposed  the  powerful  shield  of  prohibi- 
tion and  enormous  duties,  to  preserve  them  from  danger; 
while  the  United  States,  which  had  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  a  great  number  of  important  and  extensive  man- 
ufacturing establishments,  and  invaluable  machinery, 
erected  and  advantageously  employed  during  its  contin- 
uance, and  although  blessed  by  a  bounteous  Heaven 
with  a  boundless  capacity  for  such  establishments,  had, 
for  want  of  adequate  protection,  suffered  a  large  portion 
of  them  to  go  to  decay,  and  their  proprietors  to  be 
involved  in  ruin,  the  helpless  victims  of  a  misplaced 
reliance  on  that  protection.* 

Russia,  Mr.  Carey  affirmed,  completely  fulfilled  the 
indispensable  duty  of  fostering  and  protecting  domestic 
industry,  for  she  prohibited,  under  penalty  of  confisca- 
tion, nearly  all  the  articles  with  which  her  own  subjects 

*  16  Niles,  169-172. 


THE  AMERICAN  SYSTEM.  199 

could  supply  her.  It  was  painful  to  state  that  so  far  as 
respected  this  cardinal  point,  she  was  at  least  a  century 
in  advance  of  the  United  States,  and  Americans  must 
look  with  envy  at  the  paternal  and  fostering  care 
bestowed  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia  upon  industry. 
The  contrast  was  immense,  striking,  and  decisive,  and 
how  the  United  States  sank  on  the  comparison !  It 
could  never  have  entered  into  the  mind  of  Hancock, 
Adams,  Franklin,  Washington,  or  any  of  those  illustrious 
men  who  in  the  field  or  cabinet  achieved  the  independ- 
ence of  their  country,  that  before  the  lapse  of  half  a 
century,  American  citizens  would  be  forced  to  make 
invidious  comparisons  between  their  own  situation  and 
that  of  the  subjects  of  a  despotic  empire;  and  that  the 
protection  denied  to  their  industry  was  liberally  afforded 
to  the  subjects  of  Russia.  The  American  manufacturer, 
Mr.  Carey  went  on,  was  the  victim  of  a  policy  long 
scouted  out  of  all  the  wise  nations  of  Europe,  and  which 
only  lingered  in,  and  blighted  and  blasted  the  happiness 
of  Spain  and  Portugal.* 

A  system  of  prohibitive  duties  would  of  course  antag- 
onize the  revenue  policy  of  the  country,  and  as  protec- 
tionism became  more  and  more  convinced  that  its 
interests  were  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  revenue,  it  came 
to  denounce  this  element  in  tariff  legislation  and  to  hold 
up  excise  and  direct  taxes  as  infinitely  preferable,  f 

But  prohibitive  duties  were  too  bald  and  too  undis- 
guised class  legislation  to  win  any  conservative  support, 
and  the  recoil  was  so  severe  that  even  protection- 
ism hastened  to  disclaim  any  purpose  of  interfering 
with  revenue.  The  '  American  system  '  built  itself  up 

*  16  Niles,  181-185. 

t  See  20  Niles,  306,  et  passim. 


200  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

around  a  logic  that  made  no  quarrel  with  Madison's 
"  if,"  nor  with  the  theory  that  protection  was  a  tempor- 
ary sustenance  for  infants ;  but  practically  it  widened 
more  and  more  its  range  of  industries,  demanded  higher 
and  higher  rates,  and  showed  less  and  less  disposition 
to  consent  to  any  lowering  of  protective  duties.  The 
grounds  on  which  protection  had  hitherto  rested  were 
essentially  different  from  the  old  mercantile  foundation. 
Much  of  this  reasoning  was  undoubtedly  involved,  but 
the  arguments  that  were  really  powerful  were  those 
addressed  to  the  need  of  independence,  the  implied 
pledge  of  government  assistance,  and  the  expediency  of 
helping  manufacturers,  in  time  of  Special  peril,  to  do 
what  it  would  ultimately  be  their  advantage  to  do 
independently  of  governmental  interference.  There 
was  apparently  no  very  clear  idea  that  protection  would 
sometime  be  withdrawn  because  the  need  of  it  was  out- 
grown; for  free  competition,  whose  international  reg- 
ulating power  was  so  vociferously  denied,  was  implicitly 
relied  on  to  produce  all  beneficial  effects  within  the 
closed  circle  of  the  nation.  When  that  time  came  it 
could  scarcely  matter  whether  the  tariff  were  taken  off 
or  left  on,  and  the  question  would  take  care  of  itself. 
It  was  promised,  however,  that  in  the  end  the  consumer 
should  not  be  harmed,  for  the  invariable  effect  of  pro- 
tection was  to  make  the  price  lower  than  it  would  other- 
wise have  been.  The  various  reasons  urged  as  to  why 
manufactures  could  not  succeed  in  the  existing  condition 
of  the  country,  were  the  very  reasons,  it  was  said, 
why  they  should  be  encouraged.* 


*  With  one  notable  exception ;  the  validity  of  the  argument  that  the 
high  price  of  labor  waa  an  obstacle,  was  not  admitted. 


THE  AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  201 

All  this  did  very  well  so  long  as  protection  was  given 
as  alms,  or  as  food  for  infants.  But  when  manufactures 
became  extensive  and  under  thorough  organization, 
when  they  appealed  for  aid  as  the  recognized  promoters 
among  all  nations  of  independence,  prosperity,  and 
happiness,  and  when  manufacturers  in  their  own  person 
confronted  the  representatives  of  other  interests,  the  old 
basis  would  no  longer  do.  The  old  arguments  were  not 
withdrawn,  but  they  were  supplemented  by  an  exposition 
of  political  economy  which  squarely  antagonized  Adam 
Smith  and  planted  itself  firmly  on  the  doctrines  of  the 
old  mercantilism.  Of  this  new  protectionism  Matthew 
Carey  and  Hezekiah  Niles  were  the  principal  expounders, 
the  one  through  pamphlets  and  books,  the  other  in  his 
newspaper  essays;  while  in  Congress  Clay's  eloquence 
played  upon  it,  softening  its  asperities  and  baptizing  it 
anew  under  the  alluring  title  of  "  the  American  System." 

Early  in  1819,  through  the  Philadelphia  society  for 
the  Promotion  of  American  Industry,  Matthew  Carey 
began  the  issue  of  a  series  of  pamphlets  designed  to 
overthrow  the  political  economy  of  Adam  Smith,  and  to 
establish  the  '  plain  and  clear '  principles  of  the  science 
as  understood  by  all  the  wise  nations  of  Europe,  and  as 
suited  to  the  situation  and  circumstances  of  the  United 
States.  The  preliminary  task  of  Mr.  Carey  was  "to 
establish  the  utter  fallacy  of  two  maxims,  supported  by 
the  authority  of  the  name  of  Adam  Smith,  but  pregnant 
with  certain  ruin  to  any  nation  by  which  they  may  be 
carried  into  operation":  First, '  that  to  give  the  monopoly 
of  the  home  market  to  the  produce  of  domestic  industry 
was  to  direct  private  people  in  what  manner  they  ought  to 
employ  their  capitals,  and  must  therefore  in  all  cases  be 
either  a  useless  or  a  hurtful  regulation ';  and  secondly, 


202  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

that'  a  workman  could  easily  transfer  his  industry  from 
one  branch  of  manufactures  to  some  collateral  branch, 
or  to  agriculture,  and  that*  the  capital  of  the  country 
remaining  the  same,  the  demand  for  labor  will  likewise 
be  about  the  same  though  exerted  in  different  places 
and  occupations/ 

Part  of  Mr.  Carey's  reasoning  on  these  points  was 
keen,  and  anticipated  later  criticism  upon  the  defects  of 
laissez-faire.  He  pointed  out  some  of  the  difficulties  in 
the  transference  of  industry,  which  Adam  Smith  had 
imagined  so  easy,  denied  that  there  were  any  collateral 
manufactures,  and  that  if  there  were,  the  workman  would 
find  them  not  merely  full  but  with  supernumaries  in 
abundance,  insisted  that  artisans  were  wholly  unfit  for 
agricultural  labor,  and  if  not,  there  would  be  no  chance 
of  market  for  their  surplus,  and  finally,  that  in  the 
reorganization  of  industries  it  was  impossible  for  capital 
to  remain  the  same — arguments,  indeed,  which  if  valid, 
for  Mr.  Carey's  purpose  would  prove  altogether  too 
much. 

Regarding  Adam  Smith,  there  was  in  his  criticism  a 
mixture  of  playful  sarcasm  and  severity  which  showed 
that  the  lion  felt  sure  of  his  prey.  This  Delphic  Oracle 
of  political  economy,  with  his  unsound  reasoning  and 
verbiage,  he  said,  was  like  other  visionaries  and  doubt- 
less failed  to  see  the  hideous  result  to  which  his  theories 
would  lead.  Adam  Smith's  statement,  that  the  mer- 
chants of  England,  in  pursuing  the  mercantile  system, 
had  riot  understood  how  foreign  commerce  enriched  the 
country,  he  could  not  forbear  to  cover  with  the  ridicule 
which  in  his  opinion  it  justly  deserved.  A  merchant's 
apprentice  of  six  months  could  answer  the  question — by 
the  simple  process  of  selling  more  than  was  bought!  The 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  203 

principle  was  well  understood  by  the  merchants  of  Tyre 
three  thousand  years  before  Adam  Smith  was  born  ! 
Any  plowman  could  understand  it  in  fifteen  minutes ! 
Hamilton's  Report  on  Manufactures  he  called  "  one  of 
the  most  luminous  and  instructive  public  documents 
ever  produced  in  this,  or  perhaps  in  any  other  country," 
and  in  respect  to  this  point,  "  so  essential  to  insure  *  the 
wealth  of  nations/  "  "  light  and  darkness  are  not  more 
opposite  to  each  other  than  Adam  Smith  and  Alexander 
Hamilton." 

But  Mr.  Carey's  main  reliance  was  upon  what  he 
called  history, —  supplemented  by  a  series  of  highly 
colored  conjectures.  Adam  Smith's  statement  that  "  if 
a  foreign  country  can  supply  us  with  a  commodity 
cheaper  than  we  ourselves  can  make  it,  be'tter  buy  it  of 
them  with  some  part  of  the  produce  of  our  own  industry, 
employed  in  a  way  in  which  we  have  some  advantage," 
he  proposed  to  test  by  its  effects.  Look  at  the  prosperity 
of  England,  he  said,  with  more  than  a  million  people 
employed  in  the  woolen  and  cotton  manufactures  and 
affording  a  market  for  a  million  agriculturists.  From 
this  cheering  prospect  turn  the  startled  eye  to  the 
masses  of  misery  which  Dr.  Smith's  system  would 
produce.  Suppose  France,  where  labor  and  expenses 
were  much  lower,  had  gone  into  the  woolen  manufacture 
and  thus  enabled  herself  to  sell  at  half  price,  or  even 
three-fourths  or  seven-eighths  of  the  price  in  England. 
Suppose  also  that  manufactured  leather  could  be  obtained 
from  South  America  and  iron  from  Russia,  below  the 
rates  of  England.  Then  apply  Adam  Smith's  doctrine 
and  open  the  ports  freely.  France  and  Flanders  would 
supply  the  English  with  superior  and  cheaper  woolens 
and  linens,  Sweden  with  iron  and  copper,  Italy  and 


204  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

China  with  silks,  and  so  on.  Who  could  contemplate 
the  result  without  horror  ?  What  a  wide-spread  scene  of 
ruin  and  desolation  would  take  place;  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  swept  away  to  enrich  probably  hostile  nations, 
the  laboring  and  industrious  classes  at  once  bereft  of 
employment,  reduced  to  a  degrading  state  of  dependence 
and  mendicity,  and  through  misery  and  distress  driven 
to  prey  upon  each  other,  all  for  the  grand  purpose  of 
procuring  broadcloth  and  muslins  a  few  shillings  per 
yard,  or  piece,  or  pound  cheaper  ! 

Continuing  his  illustration,  Mr.  Carey  supposed  the 
United  States, '  pursuing  Adam  Smith's  sublime  system 
— buying  cheaper  bargains  of  wheat  or  flour,  from  one 
nation,  cotton  from  another/  etc.,  etc., '  while  the  coun- 
try was  rapidly  impoverished,  its  industry  paralyzed, 
laborers  reduced  to  beggary,  and  farmers,  planters,  and 
manufacturers  involved  in  one  common  mass  of  ruin  ! ' 

To  this  simple-minded  and  melodramatic  exposition 
of  political  economy,  were  added  a  detailed  examination 
of  the  protective  system  of  Russia  and  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  in  comparison  with  that  of  Spain  and  Portugal, 
where  the  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith  were  said  to  have 
had  free  course  for  centuries,*  and  an  answer  to  the 
various  objections  to  a  protective  policy  differing  but 
slightly  from  the  summary  of  Hamilton.  The  common 
notion  that  to  secure  a  home  market  is  merely  to 
allow  home  manufacturers  to  prey  upon  and  oppress  their 
fellow  citizens,  was  sufficiently  disproved  by  the  fact 
that  no  country  in  the  world  carried  prohibitions  and 
protective  duties  farther  than  England,  and  yet  she  was 
able  to  undersell  all  the  other  nations  of  Christendom. 


*  Already  referred  to ;  supra,  198  et  seq. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  205 

The  maxim  that  trade  will  regulate  itself  ought  to  have 
been  consigned  to  oblivion  centuries  ago,  by  the  consid- 
eration that  no  trading  or  commercial  nation  had  ever 
prospered  without  '  regulation  of  trade.'  Number  Six  of 
these  essays,  which  was  addressed  to  the  President  and 
asked  for  an  extra  session  of  Congress,  recited  how 
agriculture  was  kept  out  of  foreign  markets,  that  the 
home  market  was  deluged  with  foreign  goods,  while 
thousands  of  citizens  were  out  of  employment  and 
manufacturing  languishing  or  wholly  abandoned,  that 
the  balance  of  trade  was  ruinously  against  the  United 
States,  real  estate  everywhere  depreciated  from  15  to  60 
per  cent,  and  concluded  with  the  warning  that  nations, 
like  individuals,  which  buy  more  than  they  sell,  must  be 
reduced  to  bankruptcy.  But  this  huge  inverted  pyra- 
mid was  unconsciously  given  a  severe  push  in  the 
eleventh  essay,  where  Mr.  Carey  declared  that  were  he 
the  agent  for  the  promotion  of  English  interests,  and 
had  supreme  power  over  the  tariff,  he  would  have  it  so 
modified  as  to  protect  national  industry  ;  for  even  if 
carried  to  double  or  treble  its  present  extent,  there  would 
be,  as  stated  in  the  Oneida  memorial,  ample  room  for  the 
importation  of  as  much  goods  as  the  country  could  pay 
for.* 

These  essays  in  political  economy  were  printed  and 
reprinted,  reproduced  and  reinforced  in  Niles'  Register, 
in  the  publications  of  the  great  number  of  societies 
called  into  being  by  the  action  of  the  American  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Industry,  by  larger  gatherings  of 
manufacturers,  by  petitions  to  Congress,  and  in  the 
arena  of  congressional  debate.  Especially  was  Mr. 

*  16  Niles,  134,  153, 169,  181, 197,  215,  219,  250,  263,  283;  299,  348,  373, 
409. 


206  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

Carey's  statement  regarding  the  high  price  of  labor, 
hat  the  industry  where  manual  labor  was  most  used 
ad  succeeded  best,  repeated  in  memorials  and  speeches 
almost  in  his  identical  words.  It  was  admitted  by  every 
one,  it  was  said,  that  coarse  cottons  had  thoroughly 
succeeded.  Why  then  should  the  duty  on  coarse  cottons 
be  83  per  cent,  while  on  linens,  worsteds,  stockings,  silk, 
and  iron,  it  was  only  15  per  cent?  Why  leave  glass  at 
a  rate  of  duty  which  did  not  equal  the  foreign  bounty  ? 
Why  make  a  nominal  duty  of  25  per  cent  on  cotton 
efficient  for  83  per  cent,  and  leave  a  nominal  duty  on 
paper  of  30  per  cent  efficient  for  only  15  per  cent  or  20 
percent?  In  introducing  the  tariff  bill  of  1824,  Tod, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  declared 
that  no  new  principle  was  proposed;  nothing  but  to 
extend  and  equalize  the  system,  giving  a  protection  to 
manufactures  equal  to  that  accorded  to  agriculture. 
Although  it  was  denied  by  the  Pennsylvania  Society 
that  the  prohibition  of  cottons  and  woolens  had  ever 
been  intended,  it  was  .claimed  that  total  prohibition 
would  cause  no  monopoly,  for  any  body  in  the  country 
could  engage  in  manufactures.  The  United  States 
exchanged  raw  materials  for  finished  manufactures — 
the  labor  of  from  two  to  thirty  persons  for  that  of  one. 
The  last  five  years  of  European  peace  had  taken  more 
from  the  resources  of  the  people  than  was  acquired  in 
the  twenty-two  years  of  European  war.  Baltimore  mer- 
chants and  citizens,  petitioning  for  cash  duties,  declared 
that  foreign  credit  took  the  wealth  out  of  the  country,  and 
that  from  the  practice  and,  habit  of  using  foreign  goods 
in  such  abundance  an  unwarrantable  prejudice  had 
been  created  in  their  favor,  to  the  great  moral  injury  of 
the  American  community,  who  were  disposed  to  consider 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  207 

many  of  those  articles,  not  only  as  matters  of  conven- 
ience and  comfort,  but  also  as  the  test  of  importance 
among  their  fellow  citizens.  They  recommended  cash 
duties  also  with  a  view  to  turn  the  balance  of  trade  and 
thereby  bring  back  a  portion  of  the  precious  metals. 
'Our  extravagance  in  the  importation  and  consumption 
of  foreign  luxuries  must  be  checked/  was  the  solemn 
warning  of  Niles, '  or  we  are  a  ruined  people.'  '  Let  the 
reformation  go  on,'  he  said  in  the  hard  times  of  1819, 
with  something  of  heresy  toward  Mr.  Carey's  economy 
and  indulging  a  suspicion  that,  after  all,,  nations  do  not 
lift  themselves  wholly  by  their  bootstraps, — '  let  the 
reformation  go  on,  that  economy  may  be  forced  upon 
us,  the  "  days  of  leather  breeches  "  come  into  fashion, 
and  a  hardy,  high-souled  yeomanry  take  the  place  of 
petty  shop-keepers,  and  retailers,  and  speculators,  and 
manufacturers  of  paper  money.'  The  defeat  of  the 
Tariff  bill  of  1820  had,  after  all,  he  thought,  rendered  a 
permanent  benefit  to  the  country.  The  extreme  pecun- 
iary pressure  was  rapidly  curtailing  the  importation  and 
consumption  of  foreign  goods  and  bringing  about  a 
home  trade  of  incalculable  advantage  to  the  country,  by 
rendering  the  importation  of  such  goods  less  and  less 
necessary;  these  habits  once  established  from  necessity 
would  be  continued  from  choice.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  emphasized  the  folly  of  America's  policy  by  declaring 
that  if  England  permitted  free  importations  the  wheels 
of  her  government  would  be  stopped  in  less  than  a 
twelve-month.  * 


*  15  Niles,  243,  244. 

"Free  trade  is  a  pretty  thing  to  talk  about,  but  it  cannot  exist.  What 
if  England  were  to  agree  to  receive  American  bread-stuffs  ?  The  taxes 
on  land  could  not  be  paid,  nor  the  poor  rates,  nor  the  bellies  of  the 


208  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

These  doctrines  and  appeals  reached  Congress  in 
many  forms  and  from  all  quarters.  A  convention  of 
the  "  Friends  of  National  Industry  "  at  New  York,  with 
delegates  from  nine  states,  recounted  to  Congress  the 
great  natural  advantages  of  the  United  States  in  soil, 
climate,  industries,  intelligent  and  enterprising  popula- 
tion, contrasting  these  with  the  great  embarrassment  in 
all  branches  of  industry, — real  estate  decreased  one-half 
in  value,  farmers  reduced  to  bankruptcy,  a  great  portion 
of  the  mechanics  and  artisans  unemployed,  and  the 
country  deeply  indebted  to  foreign  nations.  There  was 
something  unsound  in  their  policy,  the  memorial  said, 
which  required  a  radical  remedy,  and  wisdom  dictated 
to  the  United  States  to  profit  by  the  experience  of  other 
nations.  Portugal  had  exchanged  her  prohibitive  tariff 
for  a  protective  one  of  23  per  cent,  and  in  three  or  four 
years  her  manufactories  were  destroyed,  her  manufac- 
turers ruined,  her  workmen  idle  and  beggars,  and  her 
raw  materials  sold  at  low  rates  to  foreigners.  For  cen- 
turies Spain  had  nourished  the  industry  of  other 
nations,  while  the  mass  of  her  own  subjects,  unpro- 
tected in  their  industry,  were  in  a  state  of  abject  distress 
and  misery.  Russia  and  Austria,  on  the  other  hand, 
protected  their  industry  and  were  prosperous,  while 
England,  which  protected  with  the  most  care,  had 
amassed  the  most  wealth.  The  return  of  peace  had 
been  attended  with  ruinous  consequences  to  America. 
Their  infant  manufactures  were  blighted  in  the  bud, 


priests  be  filled  with  the  product  of  the  labor  of  others  "  (30  Niles,  36 
[1826]).  And  again  (1831):  "all  the  mighty  capital  of  England— all 
her  skill,  industry,  and  scientific  power,  could  not  maintain  an  open 
trade  with  France  for  two  years"  (40  Niles,  289). 


THE  AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  209 

and  the  spirit  of  speculation  spread  abroad.*  The 
specious  idea  of  Adam  Smith  of  buying  goods  where 
they  could  be  had  the  cheapest  had  been  given  a  fair 
trial  and  its  pernicious  tendency  clearly  demonstrated  : 
the  United  States  were  buying  cotton,  wool,  and  muslins 
in  Hindoostan,  and  there  was  good  reason  to  believe 
they  would  soon  have  large  importations  of  wheat  from 
Odessa.  The  memorials  from  Rhode  Island,  Pittsburg, 
Baltimore,  and  Oneida  County,  N.  Y.,  were  pronounced 
in  a  Pennsylvania  memorial,  to  be  *  masterpieces  of 
eloquence/  f  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for  the  Encour- 
agement of  Manufactures,  in  a  second  memorial  to 
Congress,  undertook  to  answer  the  "vainglorious  and 
cavalier  statement "  of  the  agricultural  societies  of  Vir- 
ginia, that  agriculture  asked  for  no  protection.  They 
were  astonished,  the  memorialists  said,  at  such  "  utter 
un acquaintance  with  the  real  state  of  the  case."  The 
average  of  duties  on  such  agricultural  products  as  were 
usually  imported,  had  been  from  the  commencement  of 
the  government,  they  pointed  out,  far  higher  than  those 
on  manufactures.  For  example,  the  duty  on  cheese  in 
1789  was  57  per  cent,  on  indigo  16  per  cent,  on  snuff  90 
per  cent,  on  manufactured  tobacco  100  per  cent,  on 
coals  15  per  cent,  on  hemp  and  cotton  12  per  cent;  while 
seven-eighths  of  all  manufactures  including  cottons, 
woolens,  and  iron,  were  subject  to  only  5  per  cent.  At 
present  hemp  was  rated  at  26  per  cent,  cotton  at  30  per 
cent,  cheese  at  90  per  cent,  spirits  at  80  per  cent,  snuff 
at  75  per  cent,  tobacco  at  100  per  cent,  coal  at  38£  per 

*  H.  R.  Dec.  20,  1819;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session  (Appen- 
dix), pp.  2286-2293, 

t  Senate,  January  17,  1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session, 
(Appendix)  pp.  2311-2323. 


210  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

cent,  sugar  at  37£  per  cent,  potatoes  at  15  per  cent — 
averaging  58  per  cent.* 

March  22,  1820,  Baldwin  of  Pennsylvania,  chairman 
of  the  newly  created  Committee  on  Manufactures,  intro- 
duced a  tariff  bill  embodying  the  general  demand  of  the 
protected  interests  for  the  abolition  of  credits  on  duties, 
for  a  tax  on  auctions,  and  for  increased  duties.  After  a 
week's  debate  beginning  April  21,  the  bill  passed  the 
House  by  a  vote  of  90  to  69;  it  was  defeated  in  the 
Senate  by  one  vote. 

In  opening  the  discussion  Baldwin  stated  that  the 
first  intention  of  the  Committee  had  been  to  -report  a 
bill  relating  only  to  manufactures.  But  in  reply  to  a 
resolution  of  the  House,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
had  reported  that  an  increase  of  duty  on  woolens, 
cottons,  and  iron  would  impair  the  revenue,  and  tend  to 
introduce  smuggling.  They  had  then  called  upon  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee  regarding  plans  for  filling 
the  Treasury,  and  received  the  reply  that  nothing  would 
be  adopted  by  that  Committee  except  a  recommendation 
for  a  loan  of  four  million  dollars.  Baldwin  did  not 
approve  of  asking  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  take 
part  in  this  great  national  controversy,  and  thought  it 
not  right  to  call  in  the  influence  of  that  great  depart- 
ment against  a  large  portion  of  the  nation,  struggling 
against  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  indifference  of 
their  own  and  the  efforts  of  foreign  governments. 
Therefore,  called  upon  by  petitions  of  thousands  of 
individuals,  the  Committee  had  no  alternative  but 
to  go  to  the  extent  of  their  jurisdiction  and  report  a 


*  Senate,  April   15,  1820;    Annals  of   16th  Congress,  1st  Session, 
(Appendix)  pp.  2411-2423. 


THE   AMERICAN    SYSTEM.  211 

system,  which,  while  it  would  not  injure  commerce, 
should  aid  revenue  and  save  the  manufactures  of  the 
country. 

The  general  attempt  was  still  to  keep  strictly  within 
the  bounds  of  moderation,  although  the  thrusts  of  the 
other  side  and  the  exhibition  of  laissez-faire  economy 
pushed  the  protectionists  farther  out  than  they  had  ever 
gone  before.  Baldwin  granted  that  if  other  nations 
would  adopt  the  maxims  of  free  trade  the  industry  of 
the  country  would  regulate  itself ;  all  that  was  asked 
was  to  meet  regulation  by  regulation  and  thus  make 
competition  fair  and  equal.  The  tariff  of  1816,  he  said, 
was  a  revenue  bill,  reported  by  the  "Ways  and  Means 
Committee  more  to  aid  the  Treasury  than  to  protect  the 
industry  of  the  country.  A  nation  which  relied  for 
revenue  solely  on  imposts  must  encourage  the  importa- 
tion, and  not  the  manufacture,  of  its  articles  of  con- 
sumption. With  decreased  importations  revenue  must 
diminish,  and  this  had  been  the  reason  all  attempts  to 
promote  home  manufactures  had  failed.  This  system 
must  be  changed;  either  perpetual  loans  must  be  made, 
or  new  sources  of  revenue  opened  by  giving  a  new  turn 
to  the  labor  of  the  nation.  The  minimum  on  coarse 
cottons  had  excluded  the  coarser  cottons  of  India;  yet 
every  one  admitted  that  coarse  domestic  cottons  were 
now  made  cheaper  than  they  were  ever  imported.  This 
was  equally  true  of  nails  and  of  every  other  article 
of  which  the  country  commanded  the  consumption  ;  and 
domestic  competition  would  have  this  effect  on  every 
article.  He  advocated  an  additional  duty  on  cottons 
from  beyond  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  because  those 
countries  consumed  none  of  our  raw  materials,  afforded 


212  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

no  market  for  our  produce,  employed  none  of  our  labor, 
and  exhausted  the  specie  of  the  country.* 

The  ablest  and  keenest  speech  in  support  of  the  bill 
was  made  by  McLane  of  Delaware,  afterwards  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  under  Jackson,  who  continued  the  tra- 
ditions of  Madison,  and  pointed  out  some  of  the  errors 
of  laissez-faire.  The  object  of  the  tariff,  he  maintained, 
was  purely  national,  not  sectional.  Laissez-faire  was  a 
plausible  theory  founded  upon  a  state  of  things  which, 
in  fact,  had  no  existence.  Labor  and  Capital  would  not 
of  themselves  become  immediately  or  extensively  em- 
ployed in  manufactures  without  the  fostering  ,aid  of 
government,  especially  in  seasons  of  great  distress. 
Manufacturers  did  not  ask  to  sell  at  higher  prices,  but 
to  sell  at  all.  The  profit  of  the  manufacturer  depended 
not  less  on  the  quantity  sold  than  upon  the  price.  Give 
the  American  his  own  market  and  he  desired  no  increase 
of  price,  f 

The  comprehensive,  and  indeed,  the  eloquent  presen- 
tation of  the  '  American  System*  was  made  by  Clay. 
He,  too,  professed  himself  a  friend  to  free  trade,  but  it 
must  be  the  free  trade  of  a  perfect  reciprocity.  If  the 
governing  consideration  were  cheapness,  if  national  inde- 
pendence were  to  weigh  nothing,  if  honor  nothing,  why 
not  subsidize  foreign  powers  to  defend  us.  As  to  revenue, 
could  any  one  doubt  the  impolicy  of  government  resting 

*H.  R.  April  21,  1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session,  pp. 
1917-1936.  Gross  of  New  York  was  satisfied  that  manufactures  would 
be  established  whether  the  bill  was  passed  or  not ;  but  if  the  govern- 
ment did  nothing  years  of  suffering  and  embarrassment  might  pass 
away  before  the  evil  would  be  completely  cured  (H.  R.  April  24,  1820 ; 
Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session,  p.  1965). 

t  H.  R.  April  28, 1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session,  2105  et 
seq. 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM.  213 

solely  upon  the  precarious  resource  of  a  tariff.  It  was 
constantly  fluctuating.  It  tempted  by  its  enormous 
amount,  at  one  time,  into  extravagant  expenditure;  then, 
by  its  sudden  and  unexpected  depression,  into  the 
opposite  extreme.  It  was  a  system  under  which  there  was 
a  perpetual  war  between  the  interest  of  the  government 
and  the  interest  of  the  people.  Large  importations 
filled  the  coffers  of  the  government,  and  emptied  the 
pockets  of  the  people;  small  importations  implied  prud- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  people,  and  left  the  treasury 
open.  On  such  a  system  the  government  would  not  be 
able  much  longer  exclusively  to  rely.  By  encouraging 
home  industry  a  basis  would  be  laid  for  internal  taxation 
which,  when  it  got  strong,  would  be  steady  and  uniform 
yielding  alike  in  peace  and  in  war.  "  We  do  not  derive 
our  ability  from  abroad  to  pay  taxes.  That  depends 
upon  our  wealth  and  our  industry;  and  it  is  the  same 
whatever  may  be  the  form  of  levying  the  public  contri- 
butions." It  had  been  urged  that  to  sustain  manufac- 
turers was  to  tax  other  interests  of  the  state.  But  the 
business  of  manufacturing  was  open  to  all.  If  true  that 
the  price  of  the  home  fabric  would  be  somewhat  higher 
in  the  first  instance  than  the  rival  foreign  articles,  that 
ought  not  to  prevent  a  reasonable  protection  to  the 
home  fabric;  prices  would  be  ultimately  brought  down 
to  a  level  with  that  of  the  foreign  commodity. 

Our  foreign  trade  must  be  circumscribed  by  the 
altered  state  of  the  world.  But  it  was  not  necessary  or 
desirable  to  cut  off  all  intercourse  with  foreign  powers. 
Yet  if  we  had  adopted  the  policy  of  China,  we  should 
have  no  external  wars.  The  late  war  would  not  have 
existed  if  the  counsels  of  the  English  manufacturers  had 
been  listened  to  by  their  government.  The  tendency  of 


214  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

a  reasonable  encouragement  would  be  favorable  also  to 
the  preservation  and  strength  of  the  confederacy.  Now, 
the  connection  was  merely  political.  There  was  scarcely 
any  of  that  beneficial  intercourse,  the  best  basis  of  polit- 
ical connection,  which  consists  of  the  exchange  of  the 
produce  of  our  labor.  There  was  too  much  stimulus  on 
our  maritime  frontier,  while  in  the  interior  was  perfect 
paralysis.  Encourage  fabrication  at  home,  and  there 
would  instantly  arise  animation  and  a  healthful  circula- 
tion throughout  all  parts  of  the  Republic.  He  agreed 
with  the  other  side  that  things  would  ultimately  get 
right;  but  not  until  after  a  long  period  of  disorder  and 
distress,  terminating  in  the  impoverishment,  and  per- 
haps ruin,  of  the  country. 

As  to  the  maxim  of  "let  alone,"  it  was  everywhere 
proclaimed,  but  nowhere  practiced.  It  was  truth  in  the 
books  of  European  political  economists,  but  error  in  the 
practical  code  of  every  European  state.  It  might  work 
in  Europe,  but  the  policy  of  the  American  States  was 
otherwise  —  everything  was  new  and  unfixed.  The 
maxim  would  require  perpetual  peace,  and  to  be  univer- 
sally respected.  He  would  not  give  unreasonable  encour- 
agement by  protective  duties.  Their  growth  ought  to 
be  gradual,  but  sure.  He  believed  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  present  period  were  highly  favorable  to  their 
success;  but  they  were  the  youngest  and  weakest  interest 
of  the  state.* 


*H.  R.  April  26,  1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session,  pp. 
2040-2049;  also  5  Clay's  Works,  219  et  seq. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION. 

Both  sides  had  strained  a  point  over  the  tariff  of  1816, 
but  the  South  far  more  than  the  North.  Had  there 
been  no  South  the  commercial  hostility  of  New  England 
would  not  have  been  considered  for  a  moment.  The 
rates  proposed  by  Dallas,  or  even  higher  ones,  would 
have  been  accepted  unquestioningly.  Had  there  been 
no  North  there  would  have  been  no  manufacturing 
establishments  to  conserve,  and  the  tariff  would  have 
been  placed  on  a  strictly  revenue  basis.  The  South  was 
traditionally  jealous  of  manufactures,  and  opposed  the 
tariff  encouragement  as  partial  and  oppressive.  The 
argument  which  had  won  success  in  1789 — the  national 
argument — was  still  more  powerful  in  1816;  and  for  the 
sake  of  national  independence,  to  keep  an  implied 
pledge  to  capital,  and  to  conserve  the  results  of  the  war, 
the  Southern  leaders  sank  their  local  prejudices  and 
generously,  though  with  some  misgivings,  held  together 
to  give  the  manufacturers  of  the  North  such  protection 
as  was  thought  necessary  to  enable  them  to  withstand 
the  shock  of  competition  from  abroad. 

The  steady  advance  of  the  protected  interests  toward 
a  systematic  and  permanent  form  of  government  encour- 
agement, and  the  elaboration  of  an  economic  philosophy, 
founded  in  considerable  part  upon  the  old  mercantile 

(215) 


216  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

doctrines,  was  met  by  a  no  less  rapid  crystallization  of 
thought  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  patriotic  senti- 
ment which  had  appealed  so  strongly  in  1816  was 
ceasing  to  be  felt.  The  North  still  addressed  itself  to 
the  national  argument,  but  no  longer  merely  to  secure 
the  results  of  the  war  ;  the  '  American  system*  proposed 
the  creation  of  industries,  and  of  all  possible  industries, 
in  the  country.  We  must  naturalize  the  arts  in  our 
country,  affirmed  Clay,  and  by  the  only  means  which 
the  wisdom  of  nations  has  yet  discovered  to  be  effectual. 
In  1816  the  economic  aspect  of  the  tariff  had  been  prac- 
tically waived.  It  could  be  no  longer  so,  for  the  stand 
of  protection  was  arrogant  and  aggressive.  What  the 
South  hoped,  rather  than  had  reason  to  expect,  namely, 
the  gradual  dropping  off  of  the  protective  features  of  the 
tariff,  had  now  no  prospect  of  being  realized.  On  the 
contrary,  the  demand  for  better  protection  was  growing 
sharper  and  more  uncompromising,  and  was  backed  by 
a  compact,  determined  phalanx  arguing  from  premises 
which  the  followers  of  Adam  Smith  everywhere  regarded 
as  exploded  errors.  The  very  home  competition  which 
the  protectionists  lauded,  in  true  laissez-faire  fashion,  as 
the  regulator  of  all  internal  derangements,  was  indeed 
doing  its  work  only  too  well,  and  creating  an  appeal 
for  further  government  assistance  which  could  not  be 
resisted. 

At  first  there  was  merely  a  firm  resistance  to  any 
attempt  to  advance  the  tariff  of  1816.  About  the  pro- 
tective features  of  that  measure,  the  South  raised  no 
question.  The  falsetto  of  protectionism,  that  manufac- 
tures had  been  betrayed  in  1816  and  the  tariff  of  that 
year  enacted  solely  in  the  interest  of  revenue,  passed 
without  challenge  as  the  hysterics  of  demagogy.  There 


THE  TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  217 

was  no  disposition  even,  to  escape  responsibility  for  the 
protective  features  of  that  act,  although  this  charge 
furnished  an  easy  chance.  Not  yet  had  the  South  come 
to  regard  the  tariff  of  1816  merely  as  fulfilling  the  im- 
plied pledges  of  war  by  letting  the  manufacturers  down 
gradually,  and  without  shock,  to  the  former  condition  of 
things.  Calhoun  and  Crawford  were  in  the  cabinet,  but 
they  were  suspected  of  no  hostility  to  the  abstract  prin- 
ciple of  protection,  though  the  growing  coolness  of 
Monroe's  administration  in  the  cause  of  protection  was 
indirectly  connected  with  the  Southern  predominance 
in  it. 

As  to  the  question  of  further  protection,  the  South, 
and  a  large  part  of  New  England  as  well,  was  substan- 
tially unanimous.  The  government  had  already  gone 
as  far  as  sound  policy  would  warrant  or  permit.  The 
tariff  of  1816  had  been  framed  with  a  view  not  only  to 
revenue,  but  to  enable  manufacturers  to  meet  the 
importer  in  the  home  market,  on  terms  of  fair  competi- 
tion. Further  than  this  Congress  ought  not  to  go.  To 
commercial  enterprise,  to  the  keen  sagacity  of  the  bus- 
iness class  of  the  community,  sharpened  by  the  sense 
of  self-interest  and  enlightened  by  long  experience,  it  • 
should  be  left  to  explore  the  old,  or  seek  new  channels.* 
Opposition  to  the  increase  of  duties  on  iron,  in  1818, 
brought  out  more  sharply  the  point  of  departure.  The 
complaints,  it  was  said,  came  from  New  York  and  Phil- 
adelphia where  iron  directly  competed  with  undersold 
imported  iron.  There  wood  was  scarce,  labor  high,  and 
provisions  higher.  The  works  had  grown  up  during 
the  war  and  under  the  restrictive  system;  it  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  they  could  flourish  at  any  other  time. 

*  Talbot  of  Kentucky,  Senate,  Jan.  25, 1819. 


218  THE  TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

The  legislature  had  given  no  pledges,  and  was  not  bound 
to  sacrifice  the  great  interests  of  the  country  to  prop 
such  fungus  establishments.  Like  other  speculators 
they  expected  to  profit  by  the  necessities  of  their  neigh- 
bors. If  the  present  basis  was  not  sufficient,  let  them 
go  down;  it  was  not  the  interest  of  the  country  to 
encourage  the  production  of  inferior  iron.  The  works 
in  the  interior  of  the  country  asked  no  protection. 
Seven  new  states  and  two  territories  must  get  their  iron 
from  the  North  and  interior,  or  from  abroad.  All  had 
iron  ore  of  the  best  quality  and  in  the  greatest  abund- 
ance. Wood  was  inexhaustible,  pit  coal  abundant, 
provisions  cheaper  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world, 
and  the  price  of  labor  low.  These  people  would  soon 
supply  themselves.  The  proposed  duty  on  bar  iron  was 
taxing  the  raw  material  of  our  extensive  domestic  man- 
ufactories contrary  to  the  explicit  advice  of  Hamilton. 
But  the  wiseacres  of  the  day,  the  new  political  econo- 
mists of  the  North,  had  found  out  that  Hamilton  was 
wrong,  and  that  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations "  had  been  a 
curse  to  the  country.  The  great  agricultural  interest 
must  bend  before  these  mercenary  few — these  fat  cap- 
italists. It  had  been  said  that  the  country  could  not 
prosper  unless  manufactures  were  encouraged.  Had 
any  country  ever  equalled  the  United  States  in  the 
same  time  ?  When  the  population  became  dense,  when 
emigration  had  ceased  in  a  great  degree,  when  the  fine 
lands  of  the  West  and  South  were  disposed  of,  then 
manufactures  would  raise  their  heads.  It  was  not  true 
policy  or  true  economy  to  force  this  by  bounties  and 
protective  duties.* 

*  Smith  of  South  Carolina,  H.  R.  April  14, 1818. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  219 

Holmes  of  Massachusetts  brought  out  more  pointedly 
the  conventionalisms  of  laissez-faire.  Nine-tenths  of 
the  evils  upon  mankind,  he  said,  came  from  governing 
too  much,  "  let  alone  "  was  the  sound  legitimate  doctrine, 
every  man  understood  his  own  interest  and  would  pursue 
it.  He  admitted,  however,  as  exceptions,  the  necessity 
of  aiding  young  industries,  of  supporting  those  essential 
to  national  supply,  and  of  using  countervailing  restric- 
tions wherever  there  was  a  prospect  of  success.  He 
recalled  Clay's  melancholy  picture  of  the  ruined  cotton 
factories  of  New  England,  "  with  the  glass  broken  out  of 
the  windows,  the  shutters  hanging  in  ruinous  disorder, 
without  any  appearance  of  activity,  and  enveloped  in 
solitary  gloom."  He,  too,  he  said,  had  passed  by  several 
dwelling-houses  of  very  industrious  farmers  that  never 
had  any  windows  in  them;  and  the  reason  was  that  the 
Boston  and  Pittsburg  manufacturers  had  been  so  well 
protected  that  these  farmers  could  not  afford  to  purchase 
glass.  The  whole  country  was  distressed,  yet  the  facil- 
ities of  manufacturers  had  never  been  greater.  Clay 
had  admitted  that  there  was  redundancy  of  capital  in 
the  United  States,  inactive  and  lifeless,  and  that  the 
capitalists  of  Philadelphia  had  offered  the  government 
a  loan  of  twenty  millions  at  five  per  cent.  Yet  it  was 
said  that  manufacturers  could  not  succeed  for  want  of 
capital;  and  as  though  nothing  had  been  done,  they 
asked  for  a  little  relief!  Was  the  last  tariff  nothing? 
Was  the  modification  made  two  years  before  to  the  full  sat- 
isfaction of  the  manufacturers,  nothing?  Pass  the  present 
bill,  and  in  two  years  more  this  would  be  nothing.  The 
manufacturers  had  caused  the  deficiency  in  the  revenue, 
because  the  tariff  had  been  regulated  more  with  a  view  to 
the  protection  of  manufactures  than  to  the  protection  of 


220  THE  TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

revenue.  The  deficiency  would  have  to  be  made  up  by 
a  direct  tax  on  land,  and  he  would  never  agree  to  tax 
the  land  to  support  manufactures.  "  Create  a  motive, 
force  a  necessity,  and  sailors,  merchants,  and  farmers 
must  become  manufacturers  or  quit  their  country.  Pass 
this  bill  and  it  is  the  winding  sheet  of  the  navy."  For 
twenty  years  the  manufacturing  industry  had  flourished 
and  improved  more  than  other  branches,  and  was 
making  progress  sufficiently  rapid.  He  hoped  never  to 
witness  the  period  when  manufactures  should  hold  the 
pre-eminence.* 

When  the  bill  of  1820  reached  the  Senate,  Otis  declared 
himself  prepared  for  a  moderate  measure,  but  Con- 
gress was  not  prepared  on  such  short  notice  to  decide 
upon  the  great  controversy  between  the  school  of  Adam 
Smith  and  the  economists  and  encyclopaedists  of  France. 
He  wanted  more  time  to  ascertain  in  what  degree  the 
decline  of  manufactures  had  been  accelerated  by  other 
causes.  Should  the  bill  be  passed,  no  matter  what  its 
effect  on  the  revenue,  or  its  reception  by  the  country,  it 
could  not  be  repealed  without  a  breach  of  the  public 
faith.  It  would  be  regarded  as  the  foundation  of  a 
permanent  structure,  and  as  a  pledge  that  the  manufac- 
turing interest  should  be  supported  whatever  the  sacri- 
fice and  expense,  f 

Silsbee  of  Massachusetts  was  also  a  friend  to  manufac- 
tures and  disposed  to  afford  every  aid  consistent  with  a 
due  regard  to  the  other  great  interests  of  the  country. 
But  in  a  time  of  general  depression,  he  could  not  con- 
sent to  build  up  any  one  interest  upon  the  ruins  of 
another.  As  to  the  alleged  balance  of  trade  against  the 


*  H.  R.  April  27,  1820. 
t  Senate,  May  4,  1820. 


THE   TARIFF   AND  NULLIFICATION.  221 

United  States,  the  custom-house  returns  were  very 
imperfect.  The  East  India  trade  was  certainly  profit- 
able.* It  was  not  a  question,  Lowndes  declared,  as  to 
whether  manufactures  were  useful;  nobody  denied  that. 
Nor  was  it  even  a  question  whether  it  was  the  policy  of 
the  government  to  encourage  them  by  duties  upon 
foreign  importations.  The  idea  of  raising  the  value  of 
labor  and  capital  employed  in  every  pursuit  was  very 
patriotic,  but  impracticable.  "We  could  not  create  capital 
— could  only  produce  a  change  in  the  distribution  of 
labor  among  the  different  employments.  The  notion 
that  a  bounty  could  be  given  without  at  least  a  tempor- 
ary sacrifice  was  utterly  illusory.  Admitting  that  it  was 
the  interest  of  the  United  States  to  manufacture  articles 
which  it  could  procure  cheaper  abroad,  it  must  be  still 
more  its  interest  to  manufacture  such  as  should  prove 
themselves  adapted  to  its  circumstances  by  being  able 
to  bear  foreign  competition.  The  statesman  could  not 
raise  the  wages  of  the  laborer,  estimated  in  the  produce 
of  the  earth,  and  by  high  duties  must  lower  his  wages, 
estimated  in  the  manufactures  which  he  must  consume. 
Even  if  all  nations  admitted  a  free  trade,  the  arguments 
for  restriction  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  would  be 
just  the  same.  Suppose  England  admitted  American 
bread-stuffs  when  the  price  was  low;  would  any  friend 
of  the  bill  avow  that  this  policy,  which  would  make  the 
establishment  of  manufactures  a  matter  of  somewhat 
more  difficulty,  would  incline  him  to  dispense  with 
protective  duties  ?  Whatever  had  been  the  encourage- 
ment which  should  be  afforded  to  manufactures,  it  had 
always  hitherto  been  supposed  that  these  were  required 
to  be  greatest  at  their  first  establishment.  Hamilton 

*  H.  K.  April  24, 1820. 


222  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

distinctly  said  that  where  any  branch  of  industry  con- 
tinued long  to  require  a  bounty,  it  afforded  proof  that 
there  were  obstacles  to  its  establishment  which  would 
make  it  unwise  to  persevere  in  it.  Yet  our  system  was 
not  only  to  persevere  but  to  increase.* 

Tyler  of  Virginia  declared  that  if  any  one  believed 
this  bill  would  secure  the  permanent  interests  of  the 
manufacturers,  that  this  was  all  that  would  be  required 
from  Congress,  he  was  most  grossly  deceived.  This  was 
but  the  incipient  measure  of  a  system.  No  principle  of 
political  economy  was  more  true  than  that  capital  would 
flow  into  those  employments  from  which  it  could  derive 
the  greatest  profits.  Suffer  things  to  take  their  own 
course  and  the  time  would  come  when  manufactures 
would  flourish  without  the  factitious  aid  of  government. 
Natural  causes  would  produce  this  result.  The  duty  on 
cotton  and  tobacco  he  characterized  as  pure  deception.! 

It  was  this  supposed  unerring  instinct  of  capital,  and 
the  idea  that  protection  was  a  tax  on  one  industry  for 
the  benefit  of  another,  that  was  more  and  more  relied 
on.  Active  as  the  manufacturers  were  in  sending  peti- 
tions to  Congress,  the  opponents  of  the  tariff  were  hardly 
less  so.  From  the  commercial  classes  of  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  Boston,  and  Maine,  and  from  the  agricul- 
tural societies  of  Virginia,  a  multitude  of  memorials 
reiterated  to  Congress  these  laws  of  political  economy 
and  the  injustice  of  further  raising  the  tariff.  A  memor- 
ial from  Maine  declared  that  the  vital  interests  of  the 
Union  depended  upon  the  commercial  prosperity  of  the 
country,  that  the  Federal  government  was  ushered  into 
existence  with  almost  a  single  eye  to  it.  Even  the 


*H.  R.April  28, 1820. 
t  H.  R.  April  24,  1820. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  223 

present  rate  of  duties  was  embarrassing  to  commerce 
and  injurious  to  revenue.  There  was  a  premature 
growth  of  manufactures  during  the  war,  and  the  gov- 
ernment was  compelled  to  protect  them  by  the  imposi- 
tion of  duties,  well  known  at  the  time  to  be  injurious  to 
the  revenue,  and  adding  to  the  already  appalling  pros- 
pects of  the  merchant.  The  celebrated  essay  of  Hamil- 
ton had  been  pressed  into  service.  The  protectionists 
had  adopted  his  principles,  but  disregarded  their  appli- 
cation. Duties  were  now  nearly  treble  what  they  were 
when  he  wrote.  Hamilton  could  never  have  imagined  that 
the  time  would  come  when  it  would  be  deemed  good 
policy  to  make  the  people  pay  from  thirty  to  a  hundred 
per  cent  more  for  goods.  Besides,  duties  were  now  fully 
adequate  for  the  protection  of  manufactures,  and  steadi- 
ness in  government  regulations  was  highly  essential. 
At  present  there  was  a  perfect  acquiescence  in  relation 
to  what  had  already  been  done  to  favor  manufactures.* 

The  merchants  of  Salem  and  vicinity  professed  them- 
selves free  to  admit  that  the  manufacturing  interests  of 
the  country  deserved  the  fostering  care  and  patronage 
of  the  government,  but  the  interests  of  commerce  were 
not  less  vital,  and  it  was  never  sound  or  safe  policy  to 
build  up  one  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  No  manufac- 
tures ought  to  be  which  could  not  grow  up  under  ordin- 
ary duties.  The  attempt  to  increase  duties  was  not 
only  repugnant  to  those  maxims  of  free  trade  which  the 
United  States  had  hitherto  so  forcibly  and  perseveringly 
contended  for  as  the  sure  foundation  of  national  pros- 
perity, but  they  were  pressed  at  a  moment  when  the 
statesmen  of  the  old  world,  in  admiration  of  the  success 

*  Memorial  from  Maine,  Oct.  19,  1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d 
Session  (Appendix),  pp.  1493-1498, 


224  THE  TARIFF   CONTROVERSY". 

of  the  policy  of  the  United  States,  were  relaxing  the 
vigor  of  their  own  system  and  yielding  themselves  to 
the  rational  doctrine,  that  national  wealth  is  best  pro- 
moted by  a  free  interchange  of  commodities  upon  prin- 
ciples of  perfect  reciprocity.  It  was  a  strange  anomaly 
in  America  to  adopt  a  system  which  sound  philosophy 
in  Europe  was  exploding.* 

An  elaborate  and  inflated  memorial  from  Philadelphia 
declared  that  it  was  impossible  to  compete  with  Sheffield, 
Birmingham,  and  Manchester,  whose  workmen  were 
forced  to  labor  from  fourteen  to  seventeen  hours,  to  live 
almost  exclusively  on  a  vegetable  diet,  in  order  to  earn 
a  miserable  pittance  of  wages  scarcely  sufficient  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together,  f  A  memorial  from  Charleston, 
S.  0.,  after  declaring  the  maxim  that  labor  and  capital 
should  be  free  to  seek  and  find  their  own  employment, 
too  evident  to  permit  of  controversy,  added  that  if 
bounties  were  to  be  given  to  fill  Northern  cities  with 
manufactories  to  furnish  articles  with  which  they  could 
well  dispense — if  this  was  necessary  to  independence, 
equally  so  would  it  be  to  cover  the  pine  barrens  of  the 
South  with  hot  houses  to  raise  sugar,  coffee,  tea,  pepper, 
and  the  like.  The  Southern  states  were  not,  and  could  not 
for  a  long  series  of  years  become  a  manufacturing  nation, 
but  must  raise  articles  of  first  necessity.  Therefore  it 
was  peculiarly  their  interest  that  interchange  with  the 
world  should  be  free,  and  equally  their  interest  that  the 

*  Memorial  from  merchants  and  inhabitants  of  Salem  and  vicinity 
towns,  H.  R.  January  31,  1820 ;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  1st  Session 
(Appendix),  pp.  2335  et  seq. 

t  Memorial  of  merchants  and  others  of  Philadelphia,  Senate,  Nov.  27, 
1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appendix),  pp.  1498  et  seq. 
This,  of  course,  was  urged  as  an  argument  against  protection,  not  in  its 
favor,  as  would  have  been  the  case  even  a  decade  later. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  225 

articles  they  were  compelled  to  consume  should  he  pro- 
cured on  the  most  advantageous  terms.  The  United 
States  could  only  calculate  to  manufacture  for  the  supply 
of  its  own  wants,  and  this  would  not  consume  half  the 
cotton  crop.  A  duty  of  30,  50,  and  100  per  cent  was 
called  for  on  all  foreign  manufactures,  a  virtual  ad- 
mission that  the  productions  of  the  foreign  artisan 
could  be  sold  in  the  American  market  at  one-half  or 
two-thirds  of  the  home  price.  In  conclusion,  the  Charles- 
ton citizens  had  no  hostility  to  manufactures,  but  wished 
them  to  rise,  flourish,  and  attain  a  vigorous  and  perma- 
nent maturity.  But  it  was  unwise  to  force  them  into 
premature  being.* 

Various  agricultural  societies  of  Virginia  "invoked 
the  protection  of  Congress  against  the  wild  speculations 
and  ruinous  schemes  of  an  association  denominating 
themselves  friends  of  national  industry."  f  The  Roanoke 
Agricultural  Societies  quoted  liberally  from  Adam  Smith, 
and  from  the  Edinburgh  Review  against  the  proposed 
tariff  of  1820,  contrasted  the  freedom  and  independence 
of  agriculture  with  the  hireling  manufacturer,  and 
declared  that  the  identity  of  feeling  and  interest  which 
was  the  cement  of  the  Union,  would  be  destroyed  by  a 
rigid  system  of  prohibitive  duties.  J  Fifteen  agricul- 
tural societies  of  Virginia  united  in  a  remonstrance 
against  the  proposed  tariff  of  1820.  Agriculture,  they 
said,  solicited  not  the  fostering  care  and  patronage  of 

*  Remonstrance  from  citizens  of  Charleston,  8.  C.,  Senate,  Dec.  8, 
1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appendix),  pp.  1505  et  seq. 

f  Petition  of  various  Agricultural  Societies  of  Virginia,  Senate,  Dec. 
18,  1820 ;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appendix),  pp.  1517- 
1522. 

$  Senate,  Dec.  22, 1820 ;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appen- 
dix), pp.  1522-1524. 


226  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

government  to  alleviate  by  bounties,  monopolies,  or 
protective  duties,  calamities  inevitable  in  their  nature. 
The  tariff  plus  the  freight  already  averaged  40  per  cent, 
and  the  necessaries  of  life  were  much  cheaper  than  in 
Europe.  The  favorite  argument  that  home  manufac- 
tures were  necessary  to  keep  the  great  body  of  people 
firm  in  time  of  war  was  so  offensive  that  indignation 
would  not  suffer  them  to  pass  it  unnoticed.* 

A  remonstrance  from  Petersburg  turned  the  historical 
tables  by  declaring  that  the  advantages  of  a  free  trade 
were  fully  demonstrated  in  the  commercial  history  of 
the  nations  of  Europe,  from  the  unexampled  prosperity 
of  the  Hanse  towns,  under  the  influence  of  an  unre- 
stricted system  of  commerce,  to  the  commercial  ruin  of 
Great  Britain,  under  the  most  complete  prohibitive 
system  that  had  ever  been  devised.  From  Great  Britain 
the  remonstrants  learned  that  a  nation  might  become 
so  deeply  involved  in  the  protective  system  as  to  be 
unable  to  extricate  herself,  though  aware  of  the  ruin  to 
which  it  led.  The  tendency  of  protective  duties,  the 
remonstrance  went  on,  was  to  ruin  every  one  engaged 
in  commerce  direct  or  indirect,  necessitating  heavy 
internal  taxes  to  make  up  the  deficiency  in  revenue,  and 
forcing  our  seamen  to  emigrate  to  commercial  countries. 
As  to  the  home  market  argufiers,  they  had  not  calculated 
how  many  manufacturers  one  agriculturist  could  feed, 
nor  how  immense  an  addition  to  the  products  of  the 
soil  and  the  number  of  its  cultivators  half  a  century  of 
unrestricted  agricultural  enterprise  would  make.  The 
evils  of  the  prohibitive  system  were  obvious,  universal, 
and  highly  oppressive;  its  advantages  limited  to  a  few 

*  H.  R.  Jan.  17, 1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  let  Session  (Appendix), 
pp.  2323  et  se<i. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  227 

great  capitalists.  In  conclusion,  by  adding  to  the  aver- 
age  tariff  of  25  per  cent,  15  per  cent  for  freight,  33£  per 
cent  for  taxes  paid  by  the  British  artisan,  and  the 
increased  value  of  money  in  the  United  States,  the 
remonstrants  were  able  to  figure  out  a  protection  of 
over  100  per  cent.* 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Agriculture,  through 
Thomas  Forest  of  Pennsylvania,  to  which  had  been 
referred  the  petitions  and  remonstrances  of  the  Virginia 
Agricultural  Societies,  while  dealing  somewhat  in  laissez- 
faire  abstractions,  was  yet  an  admirably  tempered  argu- 
ment. The  petitions  were  considered,  the  Committee 
said,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  threatened  interests 
of  agriculture.  The  only  way  in  which  the  government 
could  render  agriculture  any  service  was  to  remove  the 
restrictions  which  oppressed  it.  The  question  was  not 
as  to  the  desirability  of  manufactures,  but  as  to  the 
expediency  and  legality  of  the  means  of  promoting 
them.  It  was  not  possible  to  buy  of  foreigners  unless 
they  bought  of  us  in  return.  As  long  as  capital  contin- 
ued to  be  employed  in  the  foreign  trade,  it  could  only 
be  because  it  was  more  profitably  employed  than  it 
could  be  if  withdrawn.  If  we  could  pay  for  what  we 
bought,  well  and  good;  if  we  could  pay  only  at  a  sacri- 
fice, then  we  would  cease  to  trade.  The  whole  fallacy  of 
the  balance  of  trade  proceeded  from  the  fatal  error  in 
political  economy  that  the  commodity  called  money  was 
regulated  by  different  laws  from  all  other  commodities; 
or  from  the  no  less  fatal  error  that  a  nation,  in  order  to 
become  rich,  must  sell  more  than  it  buys.  Among 
sources  of  loss  in  the  restrictive  system  was  the  constant 


*  Senate,  April  15, 1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session  (Appen- 
dix,) pp.  1490  et  seq. 


228  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

tendency  to  diminish  production,  to  drive  commercial 
capital  abroad  and  capital  from  one  kind  of  manufac- 
tures to  another,  and  population  from  one  state  to 
another.  The  restrictive  system  not  only  diminished 
the  amount  of  national  wealth,  but  must  distribute  it 
very  unequally,  which  was  by  far  the  worst  effect. 
England  was  prosperous  not  in  consequence  of  this 
system,  but  in  spite  of  it.  The  present  low  price  of 
cotton  goods  was  ascribed  by  the  manufacturers  to 
competition,  by  their  opponents  to  the  fall  in  price 
of  raw  material  and  of  labor,  the  greater  facility 
in  production,  and  the  general  stagnation  in  trade. 
The  fall  had  been  general  all  over  the  world,  and 
coarse  cottons  would  be  still  lower  if  the  duty  were 
taken  off.* 

The  demand  for  additional  protection  was  in  no  way 
checked  by  the  failure  to  pass  the  bill  of  1820,  though 
for  a  time  the  momentum  was  lost  and  all  efforts  were 
fruitless.  Business  slowly  revived,  interrupted  indeed 
by  occasional  reverses,  but  the  improvement  was  so 
marked  as  to  deprive  the  arguments  of  1820  of  much  of 
their  force.  Niles  noted  especially,  in  1822,  the  prosper- 
ity of  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  In  spite  of  continued 
importations  at  Baltimore  he  rejoiced  to  see  the  market 
amply  stocked  with  domestic  goods  and  sales  continually 
increasing.  Great  building  activity  was  noticed  in 
Philadelphia,  and  the  city,  Niles  declared,  owed  much 
of  her  prosperity  to  the  amount  and  success  of  her 
manufactures,  f  The  growth  of  the  cotton  manufactures 

*  H.  K.  Feb.  2, 1821 ;  Annals  of  16th  Congress,  2d  Session,  pp.  1653- 
1681. 

t  23  Niles,  1, 17.  Cf.  statement  by  the  Hon.  W.  D.  Kelley,  Forum, 
February,  1888. 


THE   TARIFF   AND  NULLIFICATION.  229 

was  especially  rapid,  and  in  1823  a  general  revival  of 
business  set  in.*  Except  the  iron  industry, '  which  was 
still  languishing  and  imperiously  demanded  the  protec- 
tion of  the  government/  domestic  manufactures,  Niles 
declared  in  1822,  were  prosperous.  The  legislation  of 
necessity  and  the  balance  of  trade  against  us,  he  said, 
had  given  to  several  branches  of  business  a  large  portion 
of  that  spirit  which  Mr.  Baldwin's  projected  tariff  was 
designed  to  afford.  The  woolen  manufacturers  were 
looking  up,  and  great  improvements  were  making  in 
the  quality  of  their  cloth.  Many  farmers  had  more 
than  a  thousand  head  of  sheep,  some  three  to  four 
thousand.  The  cultivation  of  flax  was  extending  rap- 
idly. American  coarse  cottons  were  better  than  the 
British,  though  extensively  imitated  and  the  flimsy 
English  fabrics  imposed  on  the  ignorant,  f  The  country 
in  1821  and  1822,  he  said,  was  in  a  state  of  convales- 
cence. And  such  were  her  resources  that  no  policy, 
however  injudicious,  could  permanently  depress  her. 
Her  native  energies  would  enable  her  to  rise  with,  or,  as 
in  the  recent  case,  without  the  aid  of  government.  J  In 
his  annual  message,  December  2,  1823,  President  Mon- 
roe recommended  a  revision  of  the  tariff  in  the  interest 
of  further  protection,  but  evidently  without  sharing 
Matthew  Carey's  envy  of  Russia.  "  If  we  compare  the 
present  condition  of  our  Union  with  its  actual  state  at 
the  close  of  our  Revolution,"  he  wrote,  "  the  history  of 
the  world  furnishes  no  example  of  a  progress  in 
improvement,  in  all  the  important  circumstances  which 

*  2  Bishop,  268,  281 ;  for  further  details  see  2  Bishop,  years  1821, 1822, 
1823 ;  see  also  5  J.  Q.  Adams'  memoirs,  quoted  in  Taussig,  p.  74  (note), 
t  22  Niles,  225 ;  see  also  24  Niles,  243. 
$  23  Niles,  42. 


230  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

constitute  the  happiness  of  a  nation,  which  bears  any 
resemblance  to  it."  * 

In  his  annual  report,  December  21,  1821,  Secretary 
Crawford  advocated  a  general  advance  of  duties  in  the 
interest  of  revenue,  adding,  however,  '  that  the  increase 
on  some  articles  might  eventually  cause  a  reduction  of 
revenue,  but  only  where  similar  articles  were  manufac- 
tured in  the  United  States,  in  which  event  domestic 
manufactures  would  have  been  fostered  and  the  general 
ability  of  the  community  to  contribute  to  the  public 
exigencies  would  have  been  proportionately  increased.' 
But  Congress  showed  little  disposition  to  act  upon  the 
Secretary's  mild  suggestion.  The  election  of  a  new 
speaker,  f  opposed  to  further  protection,  brought  about 
a  re-arrangement  of  the  Committee  on  Manufactures, 
and  although  Baldwin  was  still  chairman,  a  major- 
ity of  the  Committee  voted  it  inexpedient  at  that 
time  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  manufactures.  Bald- 
win immediately  introduced  a  resolution  to  add  to  all 
duties  the  amount  of  bounties  granted  in  their  own 
countries,  increasing  the  rates  on  various  articles,  and 
instructing  the  Committee  on  Manufactures  to  prepare 
a  bill  accordingly.  This  failing,  Rich  of  Vermont, 
relying  on  the  saving  clause  in  the  Treasury  report, 
introduced  a  similar  resolution  with  regard  to  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means.  J  March  12,  the  Com- 
mittee reported  a  bill,  but  it  was  never  taken  up. 
Already  intrigues  regarding  the  next  presidential 
election  had  begun  and  were  engrossing  the  time  and 

*  1  Statesman's  Manual,  461.  For  adverse  statements,  see  23  Niles,  41, 
97 ;  24 ib.,  161 ;  Memorials  to  Congress;  5  Clay's  Works,  256  et  seq.t  440; 
and  nearly  all  later  protectionist  literature. 

t  P.  P.  Barbour  of  Virginia,  Clay  having  retired  to  private  life. 

t  H.  E.  Jan.  7,  1822. 


THE   TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  231 

attention  of  Congressmen.  Niles  characterized  this 
session  as  a  "  do  nothing  Congress,"  some  members 
looking  for  an  early  adjournment  to  escape  taking  up 
certain  important  subjects,  others  because  hopeless  of 
accomplishing  anything.* 

The  following  year  Crawford  repeated  his  recommen- 
dations regarding  the  tariff,  and  January  9, 1823,  Tod  of 
Pennsylvania,  the  new  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Manufactures,  reported  a  measure  somewhat  milder  than 
the  bill  of  1820.  This  too  was  smothered  in  Committee, 
because,  as  Niles  insisted,  so  many  members  had 
embarked  in  president-making;  f  but  it  was  confidently 
claimed  that  the  next  Congress,  which  under  the  new 
apportionment  would  contain  a  considerable  accession 
of  members  from  the  agricultural  and  manufacturing 
states  of  the  North  and  West,  would  surely  come  to  the 
rescue  of  the  manufacturers.]: 

The  tariff  measure  of  1824,  introduced  by  Tod  from 
the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  January  9,  was  dis- 
cussed on  substantially  the  old  grounds.  The  protec- 
tionists leaned  more  heavily  on  the  doctrines  of  mer- 
cantilism, Clay  especially  holding  up  the  example 
of  England,  declaring  that  "  a  people  better  fed,  and 
clad,  and  housed,  are  not  to  be  found  under  the 
sun  than  the  British  nation."  The  national  argument, 
however,  was  continually  emphasized,  Tod  declaring 
that  no  new  principle  was  proposed— merely  extending 
and  equalizing  a  system,  giving  other  departments  of 
domestic  industry,  and  other  oppressed  portions  of  the 
community,  something  of  that  protection  which  the  laws 

*  22  Niles,  20. 

t  See  23  Niles,  146. 

$  23  Niles,  401. 


232  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

had  so  liberally  and  wisely  given  to  the  cultivators  of 
cotton,  of  sugar,  and  to  all  the  interests  of  navigation. 
Clay,  who  made  the  principal  argument  for  the  bill, 
invested  protection  with  the  name  "  American  System," 
and  in  general  elaborated  and  amplified  his  argument 
of  1820.  He  referred  to  previous  tariff  legislation  as  a 
fatal  policy,  inevitably  leading  to  impoverishment  and 
ruin,  dwelt  upon  the  widespread  distress  of  the  country, 
denied  that  wages  were  in  any  considerable  degree 
higher  in  the  United  States  than  in  England,  justified 
the  English  Corn  Laws,  quoted  as  in  favor  of  the  restric- 
tive and  prohibitive  system,  the  Edwards,  Henry  the 
Eighth,  Elizabeth,  and  the  Colberts  of  Europe,  and 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Hamilton,  at  home, 
and  as  a  still  higher  authority  that  "  master  spirit  of 
the  age,  Napoleon  Bonaparte." 

The  opposing  arguments  showed  how  deeply  the 
laissez-faire  theory  had  impressed  itself  upon  the  South, 
though  the  specific  points  made  by  protectionists  were 
answered  in  detail  and  generally  in  good  temper. 
McDuffie  of  South  Carolina  took  the  ground  that  each 
item  should  stand  on  its  own  merits,  and  made  his 
protest  almost  in  the  language  of  Tucker  in  1789. 
Modify  the  measure  as  they  might,  he  said,  the  South 
must  sustain  from  its  passage  a  vast  and  heavy  pecun- 
iary loss.  But  regarding  the  general  interest  of  the 
Union,  if  it  could  be  shown  that  the  proposed  duties 
were  connected  with  the  independence  of  the  country, 
this  consideration  would  always  have  great  weight;  and 
a  system  of  protection  to  manufactures  tending  to  these 
objects,  although  it  might  bear  heavier  on  the  South 
than  on  the  North,  would  not  be  disapproved.*  Garnett 

*  H.  E.  February  12, 1821. 


THE   TAEIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  233 

of  Virginia  declared,  regarding  the  proposed  duty  of 
twenty-five  cents  per  bushel  on  wheat,  that  this  attempt 
to  raise  the  price  of  wheat  was  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able examples  of  the  progress  of  the  American  legisla- 
ture in  the  science  of  political  economy  which  had  ever 
been  exhibited.*  He  insisted  that  the  bill  was  for  the 
benefit  of  capitalists  only,  and  if  persisted  in  would 
drive  the  South  to  ruin  or  resistance.  The  policy  of 
the  general  government  from  the  commencement  had 
been,  as  respected  the  South,  one  of  unabating  exaction. 
The  South  had  as  yet,  he  verily  believed,  derived  no  ad- 
vantages whatever  from  the  Constitution,  and  the  conse- 
quence was  a  degree  of  distress  altogether  inconceivable.! 

Webster,  who  bore  the  brunt  of  argument,  sneered  at 
Clay's  "  American  System  "  as  a  purely  foreign  policy, 
denied  that  the  country  was  not  generally  prosperous, 
enumerated  many  causes  of  the  present  evils,  pronounced 
the  balance  of  trade  argument  "jargon  and  non- 
sense," and  the  doctrine  of  prohibitions  preposterous, 
reaffirmed  the  statement  that  the  high  price  of  labor 
hindered  domestic  manufactures,  especially  iron,  and  in 
general  made  a  keen  and  exhaustive  exposition  of 
laissez-faire.  He  explained,  however,  that  there  were 
parts  of  the  bill  which  he  highly  approved,  others  in 
which  he  should  acquiesce,  and  that  he  should  vote  for 
increased  duties  on  woolens  because  asked  for  by  his 
constituents.  J 

As  the  protectionists  gradually  lost  the  sense  of 
economic  law,  their  opponents  sank  deeper  and  deeper 

*  H.  R.  February  27,  1824. 

f  H.  R.  April  2,  1824;  Annals  of  18th  Congress,  1st  session,  p.  2098. 
$  H.  R.,  April  2,  1824;   Annals  of   18th  Congress,  1st  session,  pp. 
2026-2068. 


V 

rr^W 


234  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

into  the  bog  of  abstract  laissez-faire.  In  general  tbe 
lesson  it  taught  the  latter  was  that  the  amount  of  duty 
was  always  added  to  the  price,  at  least  of  the  foreign 
article,  that  protection  meant  merely  the  taxing  of  the 
many  for  the  benefit  of  the  few,  and  finally  that  the 
tariff  was  a  partisan  measure  deadly  hostile  to  the 
South. 

This  outburst  of  sectional  jealousy  coming  up  again 
and  again  was  the  most  significant  and  ominous  feature 
of  the  debate.  The  struggle  over  the  admission  of 
Missouri  had  roused  an  intense  sectional  feeling  and 
slowly  convinced  the  South  that  its  peculiar  institution 
was  in  danger  from  the  manufacturing  states  of  the 
North.*  Madison  was  quick  to  see  the  close  connection 
between  the  two,  but  not  the  danger.  "The  tariff,"  he 
wrote,  "  is  another  question  not  a  little  pregnant  with 
animated  discussion.  But  it  divides  the  nation  in  so 
checkered  a  manner  that  its  issue  cannot  be  very 
serious,  especially  as  it  involves  no  great  constitutional 
question."  f  To  Jefferson,  however,  the  Missouri  strug- 
gle came  like  a  firebell  in  the  night  sounding  the  knell  of 
the  Union  and  awakening  him  from  his  complacent 
dream  of  normal  constitutional  growth  and  of  the 
infallibility  of  republican  counsels.!  Once  more  aroused 

*  In  the  debate  on  the  Missouri  bill  the  growing  sectionalism  was 
often  commented  upon.  See,  for  instances,  H.  K.  January  26,  February 
17  and  19,  1820. 

t  Madison  to  Bush,  December  4, 1820;  3  Madison's  Works,  195. 

$  "  I  had  for  a  long  time  ceaeed  to  read  newspapers,  or  pay  any 
attention  to  public  affairs,  confident  they  were  in  good  hands,  and 
content  to  be  a  passenger  in  our  bark  to  the  shore  from  which  I  am  not 
distant.  But  this  momentous  question,  like  a  firebell  in  the  night, 
awakened  and  filled  me  with  terror.  I  considered  it  at  once  as  the 
knell  of  the  Union.  ...  A  geographical  line,  coinciding  with  a 
marked  principle,  moral  and  political,  once  conceived  and  held  up  to 


THE   TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  235 

to  the  importance  of  the  constitutional  doctrines  he 
had  so  freely  violated,  he  strove  with  what  energy  yet 
remained  to  stir  up  the  old  republican  feeling.  The 
administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams  with  its  federal 
ideas  regarding  construction,  and  its  bold  attitude 
toward  questions  of  the  day,  only  deepened  his  terror 
until  he  died  in  profound  gloom  for  the  future  of  the 
Republic.* 

In  the  debate  on  the  tariff  bill  of  1820,  Alexander  of 
Virginia  took  occasion  to  warn  those  who  thought  by 
means  of  that  or  any  other  injustice  to  mount  upon  the 
backs  of  the  Southern  people,  that  they  would  find  their 
seats  neither  pleasant  nor  entirely  secure,  f 

But  the  Southern  temper  did  not  stop  with  the  con- 
viction that  the  interests  of  the  South  were  being  sacri- 
ficed. Nor  was  this  to  have  been  expected  considering 
the  broad-cast  way  in  which  Madison  and  Jefferson,  in 
the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions,  had  once  sown 
the  seed  of  the  whirlwind.  The  constitutional  question, 
timidly  broached,  and  by  a  Massachusetts  member,  in 
1820, 1  and  as  timidly  enforced  in  the  Salem  and  Maine 
Memorials,  was  taken  up  in  earnest  by  societies  and 
local  leaders  in  the  South,  who,  as  yet  far  in  advance  of 
public  sentiment,  prepared  the  way  for  and  hastened  the 
approach  of  nullification.  The  Virginia  Remonstrance 
of  November  21,  1820,§  reasoned  that  to  force  a  people 

the  angry  passions  of  men,  will  never  be  obliterated,  and  every  new 
irritation  will  mark  it  deeper  and  deeper"  (Jefferson  to  John  Holmes, 
April  22,  1820;  7  Jefferson's  Works,  159.) 

*  See  letter  to  Giles,  December  26, 1825;  7  Jefferson's  Works,  426. 

t  H.  R.  April  26,  1820. 

J  See  Clay's  Speech,  H.  R.  April  26,  1820;  Annals  of  16th  Congress, 
1st  Session,  p.  2049;  also  ib.  p.  1998. 

§  Supra. 


236  THE  TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

to  manufacture  what  they  could  purchase  abroad  at  a 
lower  price  was  equally  repugnant  to  justice,  to  policy, 
and  to  the  principles  of  the  Constitution,  and  declared 
that  the  powers  necessary  to  execute  such  measures 
were  too  despotic  to  have  been  delegated  by  the  Amer- 
ican people  to  their  government.  The  Charleston 
Memorial  of  December  8,  1820,  merely  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  every  system  of  restriction,  of  monopoly, 
of  particular  privilege,  was  hostile  to  the  general  spirit  of 
the  Constitution;  while  a  committee  of  the  South  Car- 
olina legislature,  though  denouncing  the  restrictive 
system  in  unmeasured  terms,  deprecated  any  factious 
resistance  or  mischievous  assertion  of  state  rights.  * 

After  the  enactment  of  the  tariff  of  1824  excitement 
gradually  died  out.  The  country  continued  generally 
prosperous  and  was  rapidly  growing.  In  the  partisan 
exaggeration  of  Clay  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  seven 
most  prosperous  years  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States  up  to  1832.  Little  was  heard  of  the  tariff,  but 
unfortunately  the  sectional  and  states  rights  feeling 
grew  daily  in  intensity.  The  bitter  feelings  engendered 
by  the  presidential  struggle  of  1824-25  forbade  all  fur- 
ther idea  of  party  harmony,  and  foretold  the  desperate 
opposition  to  the  administration,  though  "  pure  as  the 
angels."  But  it  was  Adams'  frank  and  bold  adoption  of 
the  federalistic  principles  of  constitutional  interpretation, 

.  *  19  Niles,  346.  This  was  quite  the  prevailing  tone  until  after  the 
passage  of  the  tariff  of  1824.  Occasionally  some  one  more  irresponsible 
than  the  others  ventured  to  announce,  as  did  Smyth  of  Virginia,  with 
all  the  eclat  of  a  new  discovery,  that  the  Committee  on  Manufactures 
itself  was  an  unconstitutional  committee.  Congress,  he  said,  had 
nothing  to  do  with  manufactures,  but  to  pass  a  law  for  giving  up 
runaway  apprentices ;  and  nothing  to  do  with  agriculture,  but  to  pass  a 
law  for  giving  up  runaway  slaves  (H.  K.  January  20, 1823.) 


THE  TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  237 

long  practiced  indeed,  and  almost  without  compunction, 
by  the  Jeffersonian  republicans,  and  his  vigorous  asser- 
tion of  a  national  policy  such  as  Calhoun  had  clung  to 
in  1816,  that  crystallized  Southern  sentiment  and  veered 
it  swiftly  around  to  the  point  of  the  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky Resolutions.  Once  more  John  Randolph  and 
other  malcontents  of  Jeffersonian  days  found  themselves 
in  favor  and  installed  as  schoolmasters  of  a  willing 
South.*  Issue  was  joined  upon  the  very  first  acts  of 
the  administration,  the  Jackson  campaign  was  started 
almost  immediately,  and  soon  opposition  presses  and 
orators  were  ringing  changes  upon  '  the  alarming 
encroachments  of  the  general  government  upon  the 
rights  of  the  states.' 

The  prominence  of  the  tariff  in  this  campaign  of 
hysterics  was  almost  accidental.  The  tariff  bill  of  1824, 
modified  as  it  had  been  in  Congress,  was  almost  satisfac- 
tory as  a  revenue  measure,  and  although  the  South  freely 
denounced  the  tariff  as  unconstitutional  along  with  other 
federalistic  abominations,  no  special  emphasis  seemed 
likely  to  be  laid  upon  it.  But  amid  the  general  pros- 
perity one  emphatic  plaint  was  heard.  The  arrange- 
ment of  schedules  with  regard  to  wool  and  woolens  had 
not  proved  satisfactory  to  the  manufacturers.  They 
pointed  out  that  while  the  tariff  of  1824  had  increased 
the  duty  on  wool  15  per  cent,  it  had  added  only  8  per 
cent  to  that  on  woolens,  and  declared  that  a  measure 
better  calculated  to  ruin  the  manufacturers  of  woolens 
could  not  easily  have  been  devised.  More  than  a  third  of 
the  wool  manufactured  in  the  United  States  was  im- 
ported from  Europe.  Wool  sold  in  Europe  at  50  per  cent 
lower  than  in  the  United  States.  The  low  rate  of  wool 


See  Henry  Adams'  John  Randolph  (American  Statesmen  Series). 


238  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

and  labor  abroad  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  home 
tariff  enabled  foreigners  to  persevere  in  their  system. 
Besides  there  was  always  a  surplus  of  manufactures  in 
a  country  like  England,  so  it  was  profitable  to  the 
English  at  whatever  price  they  sold  it.  The  woolen 
manufacturers  at  Boston,  September  14,  1826,  proposed 
to  ask  Congress  for  either  an  increase  of  duties  on 
woolens  or  a  decrease  on  wool.  But  their  memorial  to 
Congress  was  more  wily,  and  expressing  the  hope  that 
the  supply  of  domestic  wool  would  soon  be  equal  to  the 
demand,  declared  that  there  was  but  one  resource  left,  a 
square  yard  duty  and  the  establishment  of  a  iniijimum 
rate.*  By  their  own  confession  the  manufacturers  had 
expected  too  much  from  the  tariff,  and  capital  had  been 
over-venturesome,  so  that  even  domestic  competition  had 
unduly  depressed  prices.  To  cap  the  climax,  England 
practically  removed  her  duty  on  the  raw  material, —  as 
the  protectionists  hotly  maintained,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  breaking  down  the  American  manufacturer. 
At  any  rate,  while  wool  growers  prospered  and  the 
number  of  sheep  rapidly  increased,  the  manufacturers 
found  themselves  with  nearly  half  their  machinery  idle. 
The  appeal  to  Congress  resulted  in  the  introduction 
of  a  bill,  January  10,  1827,  by  Mallary  of  Vermont, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  in  con- 
formity with  the  desires  of  the  manufacturers.  The  ad 
valorem  rate  on  woolens  was  not  touched,  but  four 
minimums  were  established.  All  woolens  whose  actual 
value  at  the  place  whence  imported  was  40  cents  or  less 
per  square  yard  were  to  be  dutied  at  40  cents;  between 
40  cents  and  $2.50,  at  $2.50;  between  $2.50  and  $4.00,  at 

*  See  31  Niles,  105 ;    ib.  185 ;    ib.  200.    Another  proposition  was  to 
introduce  the  principle  of  the  English  Corn  Laws  (31  Niles,  217). 


THE   TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  239 

the  latter  figure.  Raw  wool  was  to  be  advanced  to  35 
per  cent  after  June  1,  1828,  to  40  per  cent  one  year 
later,  and  wool  costing  between  10  cents  and  40  cents 
per  pound  was  to  be  dutied  as  costing  40  cents.*  At 
first  the  bill  seemed  likely  to  pass  without  decided 
opposition.  The  majority  in  the  House  was  eleven,  but 
in  the  end,  owing  to  political  intrigues,  it  was  defeated 
in  the  Senate  by  the  casting  vote  of  Vice-President 
Calhoun.f 

So  far  the  appeal  had  been  on  the  old  grounds  and 
solely  for  the  relief  of  the  woolen  manufacturers.  The 
very  next  movement  showed  the  juggler's  art  and  dis- 
closed the  fact  that  the  tariff  controversy  had  been 
swept  into  the  whirlpool  of  partisan  politics,  from  which 
it  could  never  be  rescued.  Concealed  by  the  cloud 
which  they  presently  raised,  men  like  Van  Buren 
managed  to  display  a  double  front,  combining  Northern 
protectionists  on  non-partisan  lines  for  one  purpose, 
and  Southern  free  traders  and  Jackson  protectionists  for 
another,  but  in  all  cases,  with  an  eye  single  to  political 
supremacy  and  the  escape  of  unpleasant  responsibilities. 
Simple  minded  protectionists  like  Niles  were  quite 
unable  to  comprehend  the  rapid  evolutions  which  fol- 
lowed, and  unconsciously  played  more  or  less  into  the 
hands  of  the  intriguers. 

The  Harrisburg  Convention  which  met  in  June,  1827, 
disclosed  the  silent  opposition  that  had  proved  fatal  to 
the  woolens  bill.  The  call  for  this  convention,  made  by 
the  Pennsylvania  Society,  was  addressed  to  all  manufac- 
turers and  farmers,  and  friends  of  both,  and  the  woolens 
bill  cautiously  denounced  because  it  had  included  only 

*  31  Niles,  319. 

1  See  31  Niles,  393;  32  ib.  23;  34  ib.  187. 


240  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY". 

one  class  of  manufacturers.  This  sentiment  was  voiced 
by  the  Pittsburg  Convention  to  choose  delegates  to 
Harrisburg,  which  under  the  guidance  of  Baldwin, 
author  of  the  tariff  bill  of  1820,  and  presently  to  be 
made  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  by  Jackson,  declared 
that  every  description  of  American  manufactures  wher- 
ever located,  was  an  object  of  national  concern,  and 
earnestly  recommended  that  the  woolens  bill  be  so 
amended  as  to  include  any  other  article  which  needed 
protection.* 

The  attempt  to  procure  from  the  Harrisburg  Conven- 
tion a  recommendation  for  a  general  advance  in  duties 
on  protected  articles  was  most  puzzling  to  the  uninitiated. 
The  stories  of  distresses  among  manufacturers  in  general 
Niles  pronounced  to  be  pure  British  inventions  designed 
to  console  British  workmen  for  their  own  distresses,  and 
he  was  not  aware  that  any  other  than  the  manufacturers 
of  wool  desired  the  intervention  of  Congress,  f  The 
iron  manufacturers,  he  declared  afterwards,  when  he 
had  become  reconciled  to  the  tariff  of  1828,  privately 
begged  of  the  Harrisburg  Convention  to  be  let  alone,  as 
they  were  doing  very  well  and  feared  the  effects  of 
further  home  competition.  f  While  the  bill  of  1828  was 
under  discussion  Niles  declared  that  it  would  not  benefit 
either  wool  or  woolens;  that  while  it  would  do  no  harm 
to  try  an  increase  on  iron,  no  increase  was  desired; 
that  they  ought  to  make  hemp  at  home,  but  did  not, 
and  an  increased  duty  might  destroy  the  manufacture 
of  cotton  bagging  and  interfere  with  cordage;  that  the 

*  32  Niles,  294.    See  also  33  Niles,  391,  431 ;  34  ib.  290-294. 

t  31  Niles,  55, 153. 

t  38  Niles,  350-352.  "  But,"  added  Niles,  "  they  magnanimously  con- 
sented, for  general  purposes,  that  an  increased  duty  on  hammered  bar 
iron  might  be  asked  for." 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  241 

proposed  increase  on  molasses  would  destroy  the  market 
with  the  West  Indies,  while  that  on  distilled  spirits 
would  simply  increase  the  home  brewing  of  French 
brandy  and  the  like;  and  finally  that  the  glass  makers 
did  not  ask  for  further  encouragement.* 

A  general  bill  was,  however,  drawn  up  by  the  Conven- 
tion, and  for  the  most  part  undoubtedly  in  perfect  good 
faith.  The  bait  was  temptingly  displayed,  and  protec- 
tionist logic  could  not  detect  the  slightest  flaw  in  such  a 
scheme.  Nor  would  its  adoption  in  toto  have  been, 
probably,  of  very  serious  concern  one  way  or  the  other 
to  the  manufacturers.  But  it  formed  a  famous  cover 
under  which  the  intrigues  of  a  particularly  unsavory 
presidential  campaign  could  be  worked  out.  Van  Buren 
appeared  in  the  New  York  Convention  for  choosing 
delegates  to  Harrisburg,  but  presently  retired  from 
active  sympathy  in  the  movement  with  solemn  warnings 
against  mixing  politics  with  the  measure;  while  later 
he  kept  himself  easy  with  the  South  by  having  instruc- 
tions prepared  in  the  New  York  legislature  directing 
the  senators  from  that  state  to  vote  for  the  bill  of  1828. 
Simultaneously  the  Senate  of  New  York  lashed  Pres- 
ident Adams  for  his  apathy  in  the  cause  of  protection, 
though  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  cordially 
endorsed  the  Harrisburg  bill  and  elaborately  argued  the 
cause  of  protection.  Baldwin  denounced  the  President 
because  he  had  never  recommended  protection  in  his 
annual  messages,  and  even  Niles  found  himself  scored 
as  hostile  to  the  American  System,  f 


*  33  Niles,  431  el  seq. 

t  33  Niles,  351 ,  352 ;  34  ib.  75, 290-294.    For  Secretary  Bush's  Report, 
1827,  see  33  Niles,  247  et  seq. 


242  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

The  Harrisburg  bill,  however,  in  recognizable  shape 
was  not  destined  to  appear  before  Congress.  A  Penn- 
sylvania-Southern combination  in  the  interest  of  Jack- 
son, and  through  Van  Buren's  influence,  it  was  said, 
placed  Andrew  Stevenson  of  Virginia,  an  anti-tariff 
member,  in  the  speaker's  chair.  He  in  turn,  continued 
Mallary  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Manufactures, 
but  with  a  hostile  majority  to  preside  over.  The  first 
indication  was  given  December  31,  1827,  when  the 
Committee,  against  the  protest  of  the  chairman,  voted  to 
send  for  persons  and  papers  to  examine  into  the  condi- 
tion of  manufactures.  This  movement  was  considered 
hostile  to  the  Harrisburg  bill  and  was  opposed  by  pro- 
tectionists, who  objected  to  delay  and  insisted  that  the 
facts  were  well  known.  But  the  resolution  was  sustained 
in  the  House,  102  to  88,  by  the  same  Pennsylvania- 
Southern  combination.  The  protectionists  were  greatly 
startled.  "  It  is  manifest,"  Niles  declared  editorially, 
"  that  any  proposed  alteration  in  the  tariff  with  a  view 
to  the  protection  of  the  agriculturists  and  manufacturers 
of  our  country,  is  to  be  defeated — without  reference  to 
the  merits  of  the  question  at  issue,  and  by  the  default  of 
individuals  hitherto  counted  upon  as  fast  friends  of  the 
system.  ...  If  they  succeed,  if  the  friends  of 
domestic  industry  shall  not  rally  themselves  and  speak 
in  a  voice  that  must  be  regarded, — our  country  will 
meet  with  a  shock  from  which  it  will  not  easily  recover 
itself.  From  fifty  to  sixty  millions  of  dollars  will  be 
instantly  sacrificed  in  the  reduced  value  of  lands  and 
sheep  and  the  manufactories  of  wool.  Already  the 
farmers  stand  with  whetted  knives  to  kill  off  these 
useful  animals.  .  .  .  The  proprietors  of  woolen 
manufactories  will  be  generally  ruined."  * 
*  33  Mies,  329. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  243 

The  next  move  on  the  part  of  the  anti-tariff  men  was 
even  bolder,  though  less  fortunate  in  the  end.  A  bill 
was  prepared  which,  while  modifying  somewhat  seriously 
the  woolen  schedule,  admitted  without  discrimination 
items  and  rates  obnoxious  to  all  rational  protectionists. 
The  result  was  astounding.  The  bill  as  reported,  Niles 
affirmed,  could  not  pass,  and  if  it  did,  it  ought  to  be 
amended  to  read:  "  An  act  to  prohibit  the  manufacture 
of  certain  woolen  goods  in  the  United  States,  and  to 
prevent  the  increase  of  sheep,  and  for  other  purposes."  * 
This  was  precisely  what  the  enemies  of  the  tariff  wished 
to  bring  about,  and  with  the  aid  of  Pennsylvania  they 
succeeded  in  retaining  all  the  more  objectionable  fea- 
tures of  the  bill.  The  "  tariff  of  abominations,"  as  it 
was  popularly  called,  they  hoped  to  make  so  bad  that 
enough  tariff  votes  could  be  got  to  secure  its  final  defeat. 
But  here  they  were  at  fault.  Pennsylvania  was  consistent 
to  the  last,  and  parted  company  with  the  South  on  the 
final  vote  ;  and  although  a  number  of  tariff  men  refused 
to  accept  it,  the  bill,  abominations  and  all,  passed  and 
received  the  approval  of  President  Adams. 

The  discussion  brought  out  little  that  was  new.  The 
protectionists  had  so  much  trouble  with  the  Committee's 
bill,  which  proved,  even  after  considerable  amendment 
in  the  Senate,  a  very  bitter  draught,  that  they  had  little 
heart  to  expound  the  American  System.  The  British 
spectre  appeared  with  the  old  doleful  threatenings, 
though  looking  even  worse  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  new  tariff  than  from  the  old.  Extra  shiploads  of 
goods  would  be  sent  to  the  United  States,  and  the 
hammer  of  the  auctioneer  would  hardly  descend  rapidly 
enough  to  force  them  upon  the  consumption  of  the 

*  33  Niles,  335. 


244  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

country.  The  busy  hum  of  industry  would  cease  at  the 
factories,  and  the  beautiful  villages  which  they  had 
built  up  would  be  deserted.  The  markets  for  the  farmer 
must  cease,  and  flocks  of  sheep  no  longer  be  preserved 
except  for  family  purposes.  It  was  fearful  to  calculate, 
Niles  exclaimed,  the  depreciated  value  of  property  which 
would  result.*  The  overwhelming  error  of  the  Commit- 
tee, he  said,  was  the  protection  of  the  raw  material 
rather  than  the  making  of  a  market  for  it.  He  had  no 
doubt  that  the  effect  would  be  to  cut  the  throats  of  the 
sheep  and  delapidate  the  woolen  factories,  f  On  the 
other  side,  the  formulation  of  the  extreme  laissez-faire 
argument  was  left  principally  to  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee,  which,  through  McDuffie,  submitted  an 
elaborate  report  against  the  proposed  tariff.  J  In  debate, 
however,  ardent  free  traders  like  Cambreleng  of  New 
York  City  and  the  Southern  leaders  gave  a  firm  though 
indecorous  support  to  the  abominations  of  the  bill, 
derisively  seconded  by  the  leading  laissez-faire  news- 
paper, the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

At  the  South  indignation  was  intense,  heightened 
perhaps  because  there  was  no  good  answer  to  the  taunt 
that  the  South  itself  was  responsible  for  the  worst  pro- 
visions of  the  bill.  Even  before  the  Harrisburg  Con- 
vention the  extremists  were  discussing  the  question  in 
no  conciliatory  mood.  At  an  anti-tariff  meeting  in 
Columbia,  S.  C.,  July  2,  1827,  President  Thomas  Cooper 
of  the  South  Carolina  College  declared  that  the  time  had 
come  to  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union,  and  to  inquire 
of  what  use  to  them  was  this  most  unequal  alliance  by 

*  34- Niles,  33. 

t  34  Niles,  24,  33. 

t  See  34  Niles,  81-95, 138. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  245 

which  the  South  had  always  been  the  loser  and  the 
North  always  the  gainer.  "  Is  it  worth  our  while,"  he 
asked,  "to  continue  this  union  of  States,  where  the 
North  demand  to  be  our  masters,  and  we  are  required 
to  be  their  tributaries  ? "  *  "  It  is  the  principle  we 
object  to;  it  is  the  right  we  deny;  it  is  the  usurpation 
we  complain  of/'  ran  the  South  Carolina  Circular.  "  If 
we  do  not  at  once  seize  upon  the  strong  ground  of 
principle,  with  a  determination  never  to  quit  it,  our 
cause  is  lost.  .  .  .  Protection  was  never  meant  to 
become  a  permanent  tax  upon  the  consumer,  but  to  give 
a  start  to  a  new  undertaking  for  a  few  years  ;  on  the 
implied  and  understood  provision  that  it  would  soon  be 
capable  of  maintaining  itself.  .  .  .  Are  our  domestic 
manufactures  to  continue  in  perpetual  infancy  ?  .  .  . 
We  exist  as  a  member  of  the  Union  merely  as  an  object 
of  taxation.  .  .  .  Our  national  pact  is  broken."  f 

At  a  public  dinner,  McDuffie,  in  a  speech  wildly 
applauded,  drew  a  gloomy  picture  of  southern  degrada- 
tion. Taxed  ten  millions  a  year,  her  commerce  destroyed, 
her  staples  depressed  to  nothing,  her  citizens  in  debt, 
and  the  general  government  regularly  and  progressively 
increasing  these  unbearable  evils  to  enrich  a  set  of 
mercenary,  desperate  politicians  who  regularly  barter 
and  sell  the  interest  of  the  country  at  every  presidential 
election.  There  was  no  hope  of  a  change  in  the  system. 
Two-thirds  of  Congress  were  actuated  by  selfish,  ambi- 
tious, and  avaricious  motives,  determined  to  pursue 
their  reckless  course  in  spite  of  all  consequences  and 
totally  regardless  of  the  ruin  of  that  portion  of  the 
Union  which  produced  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 

*  33  Niles,  32. 
t  33  Niles,  59,  60. 


246  THE    TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

exports  of  the  country.  The  South  was  tenfold  more 
insulted,  more  injured,  more  disgraced  and  contemned* 
by  the  majority  in  Congress,  than  ever  their  forefathers 
had  been  by  Great  Britain.  It  would  have  been  better 
for  the  South  to  have  had  no  representatives  in  Washing- 
ton the  past  winter.  Their  remaining  there  was  only 
bearding  and  provoking  the  lion  ;  for  McDuffie  was  sure 
that  if  an  angel  from  Heaven  had  come  down  upon 
earth,  no  truth,  no  argument  even  from  his  lips,  would 
have  prevailed  with  a  set  of  men  desperately  bent  on 
their  own  aggrandizement — upon  the  ruin  of  the  South.* 
None  but  a  coward,  he  said,  could  longer  consent  to 
bear  such  a  state  of  things.  The  Southern  states  were 
bound  to  save  themselves  from  utter  ruin  and  disgrace- 
ful annihilation.  But  his  recommendations  only  ex- 
tended to  laying  a  heavy  state  tax  on  Northern  man- 
ufactures and  on  the  livestock  of  Kentucky,  and  to 
citizens  of  South  Carolina  clothing  themselves  in  home- 
spun. 

Southern  excitement,  however,  did  not  stop  with  even 
such  flatly  inconsistent  acts  as  these.  The  people  of 
Colleton  district,  South  Carolina,  advised  an  attitude  of 
open  resistance  to  the  tariff  law,  and  called  upon  the 
governor  to  immediately  convene  the  legislature.!  No 
resort  to  violence  was  intended,  it  was  explained,  but 
the  state  should  put  forward  a  solemn  declaration  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  plainly  and  unequivocally  ex- 
pressing their  determination  not  to  bear  the  impositions 

*  34  Niles,  339.  Later  toast  of  McDuffie :  "  The  Stamp  Act  of  1765, 
and  the  tariff  of  1820 — kindred  acts  of  despotism ;  when  our  oppressors 
trace  the  parallel,  let  them  remember  that  we  are  the  descendants  of  a 
noble  ancestry,  and  profit  by  the  admonitions  of  history  "  (35  Niles, 
61-64.) 

t  34  Niles,  288-290;  see  also  ib.  300,  remarks  of  the  Southron. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  247 

of  the  tariff,  and  should  appoint  an  express  depu- 
tation to  appear  before  Congress,  not  to  reason  or  to 
argue,  but  simply  to  demand  a  repeal  of  the  tariff.* 
"  When  we  do  resist,"  declared  the  South  Carolina 
Mercury,  " let  us  resist  as  becomes  men  and  freemen; 
not  each  one  in  his  own  way  and  without  head  or  con- 
cert. Let  the  state  legislature  or  a  state  convention, 
after  the  maturest  deliberation,  take  measures,  and  in 
proper  time,  send  on  to  the  United  States  government 
its  ultimatum.  Should  the  general  government  refuse, 
let  the  governor  by  proclamation  open  the  ports  for  the 
reception  of  vessels  of  all  nations."  \  Congressman 
Hamilton  declared  that  from  1816  the  South  had  been 
drugged  by  the  slow  poison  of  the  miserable  empiricism 
of  the  prohibitive  system,  and  there  was  no  hope  of 
returning  justice,  owing  to  the  unrelenting  avarice  and 
selfishness  of  the  manufacturing  spirit.  J  But  although 
they  were  without  remedy  in  the  justice  or  mercy 
of  their  opponents,  they  had  a  remedy  in  them- 
selves ;  upon  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States  they 

*  34  Niles,  353. 

f  34  Niles,  394. 

t  "Do  not  lay  the  flattering  unction  to  your  souls,"  he  said,  "that 
we  can  find  any  refuge  in  the  stern  integrity  and  inflexible  justice  of 
that  venerable  patriot,  on  whom  a  grateful  and  indignant  people  are 
about  to  bestow  the  highest  mark  of  their  confidence.  He  cannot 
repeal  a  law.  The  government  of  the  country  is  not  in  the  executive, 
but  in  the  despotic  sectional  majority  of  both  houses.  Your  candidate 
for  president  will  have  scarcely  taken  the  oath  of  office  before  that  man 
who  claims,  with  every  just  pretension  that  injustice  and  a  malignant 
hostility  to  your  interest  can  give  him,  the  title  of  the  champion  of  the 
American  System,'  will  begin  to  push  this  question  for  the  purple  for 
himself,  with  renovated  and  uncompromising  zeal ;  the  party  opposing 
him  will  not  be  outdone  in  this  holy  work,  and  the  venerable  patriot 
must  remain  in  spite  of  his  devoted  patriotism  and  Roman  honesty,  a 
passive  spectator." 


248  THE   TARIFF  CONTROVERSY. 

might  build  as  upon  a  rock  which  the  tempest  and 
billows  might  beat  upon  but  could  not  shake.  Their 
reliance  was  upon  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolu- 
tions of  '98.  How  should  they  interfere  ?  Let  Jefferson 
answer  in  the  Kentucky  Resolutions:  '  The  several 
States  who  formed  the  Constitution,  being  sovereign, 
independent,  have  the  unquestionable  right  to  judge  its 
infractions;  and  a  nullification  by  those  sovereigns  of 
all  unauthorized  acts  done  under  color  of  that  instru- 
ment, is  the  rightful  remedy.'  Regarding  the  various 
remedies  that  had  been  proposed,  Hamilton  considered 
State  excises  as  worse  than  inefficient — a  sort  of  domestic 
tariff  against  friends  and  enemies  alike.  Besides,  such 
local  excises  would  be  decided  against  them  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  would  thus  virtually  pass  on  the 
sovereignty  of  the  State,  and  he  did  not  want  South 
Carolina  involved  in  a  pitiful  contest  with  the  subor- 
dinate officers  of  the  general  government.  He  had  still 
less  faith  in  non-consumptive  resolutions.  They  were 
so  partial  and  inefficient  that  they  would  punish  the 
non-consumers  with  grievous  self-denial,  and  at  best 
were  but  a  sullen  acquiescence  in  wrongs.  The  resolu- 
tion to  establish  manufactures  in  South  Carolina,  he 
said,  was  quite  as  sensible  and  consoling  a  remedy  as 
would  have  been  the  proposition  during  the  Revolution 
to  have  resisted  the  tea  tax  by  cultivating  the  plant  in 
hot  houses  throughout  the  country.  He  came  back,  he 
said,  to  Jefferson's  principle — nullification.  But  would 
not  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  inevitably  follow  ?  Not 
unless  their  opponents  willed  it  so.  One  of  three 
courses  would  be  open  to  the  national  government  after 
nullification  was  proclaimed.  It  could  submit,  leaving 
South  Carolina  alone,  call  a  convention  of  the  States,  or 


THE  TARIFF   AND  NULLIFICATION.  249 

apply  direct  coercion.  The  State  paid  too  much  tribute 
to  admit  of  the  first.  The  next  resource  ought  to  be  the 
remedy.  Three-fourths  of  the  states  must  affirm  the 
tariff  before  it  could  be  constitutional.  If  this  were 
done  (as  it  would  not  be),  it  would  be  as  competent  for 
South  Carolina  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  as  to  with- 
hold its  consent  in  1787.  If  force  were  used  they  had 
nothing  to  fear;  other  states  would  join  them,  though 
they  did  not  need  even  that.* 

But  these  overheated  and  contradictory  propositions 
found  little  soil  for  immediate  growth.  There  was  no 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  malignant  effect  of  the 
tariff  on  the  South,  and  almost  none  as  to  its  unconsti- 
tutionality.  Southern  leaders  generally,  however,  were 
not  yet  ready  to  despair,  nor  had  excitement  and  anger 
carried  them  beyond  all  bounds  of  reason.  The  Union 
sentiment  was  strong,  and  in  the  election  of  Jackson 
the  South  saw  the  prospect  of  relief.  Ex-Governor 
Williams  of  South  Carolina  believed  the  tariff  to  be 
unwise,  unjust,  and  unconstitutional,  but  resistance  to 
legislation  must  end  in  disunion,  aad  the  legislature 
could  not  better  the  situation,  t  Governor  Forsyth  of 
Georgia  had  no  faith  in  state  tariffs  to  correct  the  evil. 
The  law  must  perish  where  it  was  born,  under  the  force 
of  public  opinion.  The  people  should  practice  economy, 
substitute  the  manufactures  of  Europe  for  those  of  the 
North,  encourage  household  manufactures,  and  the  like.f 
Governor  Murphy  of  Alabama  was  clear  that  the  tariff 
checked  their  prosperity.  He  advocated  manufactures, 
thought  slave  labor  extremely  well  adapted  to  it,  and 

*  35  Niles,  203-208. 
t  35  Niles,  47-48. 
$  35  Niles,  223. 


250  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

favored  a  free  but  temperate  memorial  to  Congress.* 
Governor  Johnson  of  Louisiana  declared  that  all  at- 
tempts at  disunion  would  be  met  with  frowns,  and  if 
necessary  resisted  by  the  arms  of  an  indignant  public,  f 
Governor  Iredell  of  North  Carolina  affirmed  that  the 
spirit  of  the  Constitution  forbade  the  last  tariff  law,  but 
dissolution  of  the  Union  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  J 
William  H.  Crawford  presided  at  an  anti-tariff  meeting 
at  Athens,  Georgia,  which  adopted  resolutions  unfriendly 
to  nullification;  and  Calhoun,  Vice-President  and  vice- 
presidential  candidate  on  the  Jackson  ticket,  made 
public  a  letter  in  which,  while  declaring  that  the 
excitement  was  deep  and  universal,  he  counselled 
moderation. § 

Jackson's  equivocal  position  on  the  tariff  brought  him 
votes  in  various  parts  of  the  Union  for  precisely  opposite 
reasons,  though  the  South  hoped  rather  than  felt 
assured  that  he  would  favor  tariff  reduction.  The 
possibility  of  such  a  result,  however,  succeeded  in  quiet- 
ing Southern  excitement,  and  even  South  Carolina 
ceased  to  hold  mass-meetings  pending  the  change  of 
administration.  But  the  first  measures  of  the  new 
administration  were  not  very  reassuring.  Jackson  was 
walking  a  very  narrow  plank  and  to  turn  to  either  side 
would  be  equally  fatal.  In  his  inaugural  he  was  vague  and 
non-committal,  though  his  words  sounded  rather  omi- 
nous to  protectionist  ears.  He  '  hoped  to  be  animated 
by  a  proper  respect  for  those  sovereign  members  of  the 

*  35  Niles,  275-277. 

t  35  Niles,  263. 

t  35  Niles,  263. 

§  35  Niles,  61,  113, 129.  In  the  letter  as  originally  published  in  Niles' 
Register,  Calhoun  was  made  to  add  that  the  tariff  was  unconstitutional 
and  must  be  repealed.  This  was  pronounced  spurious  by  Calhoun. 


THE   TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  251 

Union,  taking  care  not  to  confound  powers  they  had 
reserved  to  themselves  with  those  they  had  granted  to 
the  confederacy.'  'The  great  interests  of  agriculture, 
commerce,  aud  manufactures  should  be  equally  favored; 
the  only  exception  should  consist  in  the  peculiar  encour- 
agement of  any  product  of  either  found  essential  to 
national  independence/  *  His  first  annual  message  in 
December,  1829,  still  spoke  guardedly,  deprecating  all 
attempts  to  connect  the  tariff  with  party  questions,  but 
maintaining  the  necessity  of  some  protection,  and  rec- 
ommending that  the  first  tariff  reductions  be  on 
articles  like  tea  and  coffee -which  did  not  come  into 
competition  with  home  productions. 

As  might  have  been  expected  the  temper  of  the  South 
Carolinians  was  rising.  Nullification  was  Lgain  on  their 
lips,  and  with  the  purpose  of  strengthening  their  cour- 
age and  cause  they  arranged  a  banquet  on  Jefferson's 
birthday,  April  13,  1830.  To  this,  perhaps  with  an  idea 
of  adroitly  committing  the  president  to  Jefferson's 
constitutional  doctrines,  perhaps  simply  to  force  his 
hand,  they  invited  Jackson.  But  the  latter  needed  no 
one  to  tell  him  when  a  glove  had  been  thrown  down, 
nor  did  he  lack  the  courage  to  take  it  up.  In  the  midst 
of  a  great  flow  of  nullification  speech  he  proposed  the 
toast,  "  Our  Federal  Union,  it  must  be  preserved,"  and 
by  his  blunt  words  brought  the  banquet  to  confusion — 
and  earned  the  undying  hatred  of  South  Carolina.  Yet 
Jackson  knew  with  whom  he  was  dealing,  and  a  few 
weeks  later  raised  the  feeling  of  the  rest  of  the  South 
to  the  highest  pitch  of  enthusiasm  by  vetoing  the 
Maysville  road  bill,  in  a  long  and  closely  argued  paper 

*  36  Niles,  28,  29. 


252  THE  TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

maintaining   the    strictest   principles   of  constitutional 
interpretation.* 

The  majority  of  South  Carolina's  leaders,  however, 
refused  to  be  reassured  by  the  message  which  gave  so 
much  hope  to  even  her  representatives  in  Congress. 
The  Cheraw  Republican  declared  that  the  reduction  of 
duties  on  tea,  coffee,  salt,  and  molasses  was  intended  as 
a  propitiatory  sacrifice  to  those  states  whose  disaffection 
had  increased,  and  was  a  plausible  pretext  for  continuing 
the  existing  duties;  while  the  Newburn  (N.  C.)  Sentinel 
professed  to  regard  the  reduction  as  a  specimen  of 


*  Polk  of  Tennessee  declared  that  Jackson  "  had  planted  himself 
upon  the  ramparts  of  the  Constitution  and  had  taken  the  high  responsi- 
bility upon  himself  to  check  the  downward  march,"  etc.  P.  P.  Barbour 
of  Virginia  said  that  Jackson  had  done  the  state  some  service  before ; 
but  in  his  opinion  it  was  but  dust  in  the  balance  compared  with  the 
good  he  had  done  now.  Senator  Hayne  declared  at  Charleston,  in  a 
Fourth  of  July  speech,  that  "  General  Jackson  in  putting  his  veto  upon 
the  Maysville  road  bill  has  opened  to  the  Southern  states  the  first 
dawning  of  returning  hope."  The  Georgia  Journal  declared  that  by 
this  veto  "  the  American  System  has  received  a  blow  which  it  is  hoped 
will  prostrate  it  forever."  And  Senator  Blair  of  South  Carolina  wrote 
to  his  constituents  three  days  after  the  veto:  "Since  writing  my 
address  our  political  prospects  have,  I  think,  become  much  better- 
Two  days  ago,  we  passed  in  our  House  a  bill  reducing  the  duty  on  salt, 
another  reducing  the  duty  on  molasses.  The  Senate  a  few  days  ago 
laid  on  the  table  a  bill  authorizing  subscription  for  stock  to  the  O.  &  B. 
R.  R.  Co.,  and  to  cap  the  climax,  our  worthy  President  has  put  his 
veto  on  a  bill  authorizing  a  subscription  of  stock  to  the  Lexington  and 
Maysville  road  bill.  ...  I  should  be  better  pleased  with  his  mes- 
sage if  it  were  a  little  '  tight-laced '  as  regards  the  power  of  Congress  to 
make  roads,  etc.  But  for  political  purposes,  as  regards  the  South,  it  is 
quite  efficient.  Thus  I  regard  the  system  of  internal  improvements  as 
completely  overthrown — and  with  that  the  prohibitive  system  must 
soon  go  down.  South  Carolina  has  ample  cause  for  gratulation  and 
rejoicing,  and  every  reason  to  hope  that  by  continuing  to  exercise  a 
little  forbearance  all  things  will  right  come  in  a  year  or  two."  (38 
Niles,  308-315;  319-321;  379.) 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  253 

Northern  jugglery.*  Niles  explained  the  matter  by 
saying  that  it  was  not  a  triumph  for  free  trade,  as  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  put  it,  but  an  undoing  of  what 
the  free  trade  folks  had  done  in  1828.  The  increased 
duty  on  molasses,  for  instance,  had  been  crammed  into 
the  bill  against  the  consent  of  three-fourths  of  the 
avowed  friends  of  the  tariff,  and  retained  by  the  almost 
unanimous  vote  of  the  South,  f 

Both  sides  were  becoming  aroused.  Niles  admitted 
the  imminent  danger,  and  was  the  more  alarmed,  as  all 
his  predictions  regarding  the  tariff  of  1828  had  been 
unfulfilled.  The  respective  forces  were  drawn  up  in 
line  of  battle,  and  considerable  skirmishing  was  done  in 
Congress.  But  the  signal  for  action  was  given  by 
Jackson's  third  annual  message,  December,  1831.  He 
congratulated  the  country  upon  its  great  prosperity,  and 
calling  attention  to  the  prospective  extinction  of  the 
public  debt,  advocated  a  horizontal  reduction  of  tariff 
^ates.  In  three  years  the  debt  would  be  paid,  leaving  a 
surplus  of  more  than  eleven  millions  a  year.  The  lull 
in  the  tariff  controversy  was  over.  The  Southern  oppor- 
tunity had  come,  and  the  South  sprang  at  once  to  the 
attack.  Eublic  meetings  and  dinners  gave  occasion  for 
anti-tariff  and  nullification  utterances,  and  resolutions 
and  remonstrances  began  pouring  in  upon  Congress. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  near  approach  of  a  necessary 
reduction  of  duties  aroused  the  manufacturers  to  the 
necessity  of  placing  the  protective  system  on  grounds 
which  could  not  be  shaken  by  revenue  considerations. 

South  Carolina  was  by  no  means  unanimous  in  sup- 
porting the  nullification  doctrine,  but  on  one  point  the 

*  38  Niles,  340,  341. 

t  38  Niles,  321,  322.     According  to  the  Charleston  Mercury  these 
reductions  would  benefit  only  the  tariff  states. 


254  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

State  was  thoroughly  united.  While  the  Union  party 
deplored  the  angry  political  excitement  and  blamed  the 
nullifiers  for  attempting  to  force  their  dangerous  polit- 
ical measures  upon  the  State,  they  were  no  less  outspoken 
in  regard  to  the  tariff  itself.  The  tariff  of  1828,  they 
agreed,  was  unequal  and  unjust  in  its  operation  and 
burdensome  to  the  South,  unwise  and  impolitic,  and 
must  be  repealed.*  And  this  position  was  substantially 
taken  by  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  in 
Governors'  messages,  legislative  resolutions,  and  public 
meetings.  In  South  Carolina,  in  response  to  numerous 
petitions,  Governor  Hamilton  appointed  a  day  of  fasting, 
humiliation,  and  prayer,  f 

This  feeling  of  unbending  hostility  on  the  part  of 
the  Union  men  of  the  South  was  most  ominous. 
"  One  of  the  most  alarming  features  of  the  controversy," 
wrote  Matthew  Carey,  "  is  the  fact  that  a  large  portion 
of  the  most  decided  supporters  of  the  Union  and 
enemies  of  nullification,  and  its  counterpart,  a  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union,  with  all  its  attendant  horrors,  are 
firm  believers  in  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  protec- 
tive system,  and  appear  to  require  its  total  aboli- 
tion." I  Yet  to  the  demands  of  the  South  there  was  no 
response.  "  Let  Congress  repeal  the  tariff — abandon 
the  principles  of  protection,  abolish  internal  improve- 
ments— enact  none  but  bona  fide  revenue  laws,  and 
Southern  excitement  will  instantly  cease,"  was  the  lan- 
guage of  the  South.  "  What  happened  in  the  days  of 
the  Hartford  Convention  so  immodest  and  outrageous  !  " 
was  the  Northern  comment.§  Nor  were  the  tariff  men 


*  41  Niles,  13. 
t  41  Niles,  65. 

*  41  Niles,  89. 

$  See  41  Niles,  101. 


THE   TARIFF   AND  NULLIFICATION.  255 

less  active  than  their  enemies.  Monster  meetings  were 
held  at  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Albany,  Pitts- 
burg,  Louisville,  and  elsewhere,  to  enforce  in  strongest 
terms  the  necessity  of  maintaining  the  American  System 
intact.  The  tariff  position  was  substantially  denned  at 
a  tariff  convention  held  in  New  York,  October,  1831, 
following  closely  a  similar  meeting  of  free  traders  at 
Philadelphia.  In  the  Philadelphia  convention  nearly 
all  the  delegates  were  from  the  South;  in  the  New  York 
convention  the  South  had  scarcely  a  representative. 

The  Philadelphia  convention,  first  suggested  by  the 
New  York  Evening  Post,  presented  two  papers  to  the 
country — an  address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
written  by  Jackson's  ex-Attorney  General,  John  M. 
Berrien  of  Georgia,  and  a  memorial  to  Congress,  the 
work  of  Albert  Gallatin.  The  address  declared  that 
they  came  in  faith  that  if  their  grievances  were  under- 
stood they  would  be  remedied.  The  discontent  with 
the  tariff  could  not  be  overlooked.  It  was  of  long 
standing.  A  numerous  and  respectable  portion  of  the 
United  States  did  not  merely  condemn  the  system  as 
unjust,  they  utterly  denied  its  constitutionality.  Then 
followed  a  long  exposition  of  extreme  laissez-faire, 
the  demand  for  free  trade  being  based  on  the  "  unques- 
tionable right  of  every  individual  to  apply  his  labor  and 
capital  in  the  mode  which  he  may  conceive  best  calcu- 
lated to  promote  his  own  interest."  The  memorial  of 
Gallatin,  avoiding  the  constitutional  question,  was  a  far 
abler  and  more  temperate  defence  of  free  trade.* 

*  For  the  Address,  see  41  Niles,  136  et  seq.  Gallatin's  memorial  is 
printed  in  U.  S.  Documents,  22d  Congress,  1st  session,  Senate  Docu- 
ments, vol.  i.,  No.  55.  Gallatin's  motion  to  strike  out  the  part  relating 
to  the  constitutional  question  was  rejected  by  a  decided  vote.  Maine, 


256  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

The  New  York  address  declared  the  American  System 
to  be  national  in  its  character.  It  was  to  rescue  the 
labor  of  the  American  people  from  an  inferiority,  a 
subjection  dishonorable,  burdensome,  and  degrading^ 
that  protective  laws  were  originally  passed  and  still 
existed.  To  give  up  this  power  would  be  to  give  up  the 
Constitution.  The  American  System  invited  the  appli- 
cation of  American  capital  to  stimulate  American 
industry.  It  proposed  a  restriction,  in  the  form  of  an 
impost  duty,  on  certain  products  of  foreign  labor;  but 
so  far  as  related  to  American  capital  or  American  labor, 
it  simply  offered  security  and  inducement  to  the  one, 
and  gave  energy  and  vigor  to  the  other.  The  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  opposite  school  was  totally 
erroneous.  It  considered  profits  of  capital  as  the  only 
source  of  national  wealth.  It  assumed  that  the  wages  of 
labor  were  barely  sufficient  to  support  the  laborer,  leav- 
ing him  nothing  for  accumulation.  Whether  true  or 
not  in  Europe  it  was  totally  false  in  the  United  States. 
America  had  no  class  corresponding  to  the  human 
machines  of  Europe.  There  was  no  question  as  to  the 
advantages  of  free  trade  as  a  municipal  principle.  But 
as  between  foreign  nations  there  was  no  free  trade, 
never  had  been,  and  never  could  be.  It  would  contra- 
vene the  arrangements  of  Providence.  Nations  were 
adversary  to  each  other.  An  unrestricted  intercourse 
between  two  nations  reduced  the  labor  of  one  to  the 
same  scale  of  compensation  as  the  other.  In  conclu- 
sion, after  dwelling  at  length  upon  the  beneficent 
operation  of  protection  in  the  United  States,  it  was 

Massachusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  cast  35  votes 
against  Gallatin's  motion  to  29  in  its  favor.  Gallatin  and  twenty-six 
others  voted  against  the  final  adoption  of  the  address  (41  Niles,  156,  157). 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  257 

affirmed  that  in  reducing  the  revenue,  the  tariff  should 
be  taken  off  of  articles  not  competing  with  American 
industries.*  "  Our  other  manufacturers,"  it  was  said, 
in  the  convention,  "  require  a  like  protection.  If  re- 
fused they  will  be  underworked  by  the  half-starved 
miserable  labor  of  foreign  countries.  We  are  not  to 
place  our  population  in  comparison  with  the  English 
and  Asiatic  laborer  who  works  sixteen  or  eighteen  hours 
a  day.  They  cannot  and  will  not  be  degraded  to  a 
level  with  such  men."  \  A  crisis  had  arrived  ;  Southern 
agriculture  and  Northern  navigation  had  united  against 
the  tariff.  People  were  being  tempted  by  the  prospect 
of  low  prices,  while  in  point  of  fact,  the  repeal  of  the 
tariff  would  result  in  the  great  and  permanent  enhance- 
ment of  prices.  J 

Every  one  knew  that  a  desperate  struggle  was  coming. 
The  protectionists  still  held  an  unquestioned  majority 
in  Congress,  but  as  a  reduction  must  be  made  some- 
where, there  could  not  help  being  a  disposition  on  the 
part  of  conservative  men  to  yield  somewhat  to  the 
undoubted  deep  feeling  of  the  South.  Compromise  and 
conciliation  were  undoubtedly  in  the  air.  Even  Niles 
began  to  talk  of  compromise  as  to  the  quantum  of 
protection,  though  the  system  itself  could  not  and  would 
not  be  given  up.  For  its  abandonment,  he  said,  would 
produce  general  ruin  among  the  Middle,  Eastern,  and 
Western  States.  § 

But  the  firm  and  dictatorial  tone  of  Mr.  Clay  reformed 
the  wavering  lines.  Once  more  back  in  Congress  and 

*  41  Niles,  204  et  seq. 
f41  Niles,  181. 

*  41  Niles,  186. 

§  41  Niles,  61-66,  73-76,  105-110. 


258  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

looked  to  as  the  leader  against  Jacksonism,  he  was  in  no 
compromising  mood  in  this  flood  tide  of  a  current  which 
was  bearing  him,  as  he  believed,  straight  to  the  chair  of 
Washington.  His  enemies  were  alert  and  vindictive, 
but  he  felt  able  to  cope  with  them,  and  he  soon  subdued 
much  of  the  conciliatory  spirit  which  the  desperate 
earnestness  of  the  South  had  infused  into  the  protec- 
tionist ranks.  But  he  entirely  underestimated  the 
strength  of  the  Southern  feeling,  and  here,  as  pointed 
out  by  Adams,  was  his  great  error.  The  tariff  must  be 
reduced,  and  Adams  inquired  if  in  the  gracious  oper- 
ation of  remitting  there  would  not  be  a  mixture  of 
harshness  in  extending  the  protective  system,  and  a 
danger  of  increasing  the  discontents  of  the  Southern 
States.  Clay's  reply  was  characteristic.  The  discontent, 
he  said,  was  almost  all,  if  not  entirely,  imaginary  or 
fictitious,  and  in  almost  all  the  states  had  in  great 
measure  subsided.* 

The  tariff  discussion  began  as  soon  as  Congress  met. 
If  a  reduction  must  be  made  the  struggle  could  not  be 
avoided.  Clay,  indeed,  was  inclined  to  oppose  the  fur- 
ther payment  of  the  debt,  but  in  this  purely  tactical 
move  he  was  overruled  by  Adams,  who  felt  that  the 
country  was  against  it.  January  9,  1832,  Clay  intro- 
duced a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  duties  upon  imports, 
not  coming  into  competition  with  articles  produced  in 
the  United  States,  ought  to  be  forthwith  abolished, 
except  upon  wines  and  silks,  and  that  these  should  be 
reduced.  This  resolution  he  supported  in  a  two  hours' 
speech,  January  11,  which  Niles  pronounced  decisive  as 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  protective  policy  and  that 
of  internal  improvements.  February  2,  3,  and  6,  he 

*  8  J.  Q.  Adams'  Memoirs,  443. 


THE   TARIFF   AND   NULLIFICATION.  259 

followed  this  with  an  exhaustive  exposition  and  defence 
of  protection,  in  what  is  usually  called  his  "  great  speech 
in  defence  of  the  American  System."  He  claimed  for 
the  tariff:  the  people  out  of  debt,  land  rising  in  value, 
ready  though  not  extravagant  market;  innumerable 
flocks  and  herds  browsing  and  gamboling  on  ten  thou- 
sand hills  and  plains  covered  with  rich  and  verdant 
grasses,  cities  expanded  and  whole  villages  springing  up 
as  it  were  by  enchantment,  exports  and  imports  in- 
creased and  increasing,  the  public  debt  of  two  wars 
nearly  redeemed;  and  to  crown  all,  the  public  treasury 
overflowing,  embarrassing  Congress,  not  to  find  subjects 
of  taxation,  but  to  select  the  objects  which  should  be 
liberated  from  the  impost.* 

January  19,  the  House  called  upon  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  for  information  regarding  manufactures 
and  for  the  plan  of  a  tariff  bill.  Without  waiting  for 
this  report,  McDuffie,  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee,  introduced,  February  8,  a  bill  reducing  gen- 
erally and  by  degrees  the  protective  duties  to  a  level  of 
12£  per  cent.  April  27,  McLane  presented  his  report 
and  tariff  measure  reducing  the  average  rate  of  duty 
from  44  per  cent  to  27  per  cent,  repealing  the  tariff  of 
1828,  reducing  duty  on  wool  to  5  per  cent  and  on 
woolens  to  20  per  cent,  abolishing  the  minimum  system 
on  woolens  except  as  to  the  lowest  qualities,  and  lower- 
ing "at  one  fell  swoop,"  to  quote  Niles,  the  rates  on  a 
large  number  of  articles.  \  McLane's  idea  was  to  har- 
monize opposing  interests  by  preserving  protection 
somewhat  after  the  law  of  1824,  while  conceding  not  a 
little  to  Southern  feeling.  But  neither  party  was 

*  41  Niles,  361 ;  42  Niles,  2-16 ;  also  5  Clay's  Works,  437-486. 
t  42  Niles,  182-184;  188-192. 


260  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

satisfied,  and  in  this  extremity  conservatives  of  all  classes 
turned  to  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  of  which 
Adams  was  chairman.  Adams  felt  himself  unable,  or  at 
least  unwilling,  to  cope  with  the  difficulty,  and  having 
been  appointed  a  member  of  the  select  committee  to 
investigate  the  United  States  Bank,  had  asked  to  be 
excused  from  further  service  on  the  Committee  on  Man- 
ufactures. This  disposition  was  violently  opposed.  The 
Jackson  members  crowded  around  him  in  the  House 
begging  him  to  withdraw  his  request.  Cambreleng 
declared  that  the  harmony,  if  not  the  existence,  of  the 
confederation  depended  upon  the  arduous,  prompt,  and 
patriotic  efforts  of  a  few  eminent  men,  of  whom  Adams 
was  one.  Bates  of  Maine  declared  that  Adams  was  the 
only  man  in  the  Union  capable  of  taking  the  high 
stand  of  umpire.  Other  members  spoke  quite  as  em- 
phatically, and  Southern  papers  began  referring  to  him 
in  cordial  terms.* 

Thus  impelled  Adams  threw  himself  into  the  sub- 
ject with  great  vigor,  drew  up  an  elaborate  report,  and 
on  the  23d  of  May  introduced  a  modification  of  the 
McLane  bill,  which,  while  not  impairing  its  main  fea- 
tures, was  more  acceptable  to  the  manufacturing  inter- 
est. The  report  was  an  able  and  unprejudiced  attempt 
to  bring  together  the  opposing  arguments  and  to  get  at 
their  real  value.  The  protective  system  he  planted  on 
the  broad  ground  of  national  defence  and  national  wel- 
fare. He  rejected  the  favorite  protectionist  doctrine 
that  duties  lowered  prices,  as  opposed  to  common  sense, 
declared  that  it  had  always  been  assumed,  never  proved, 

*  See  42  Niles,  70,  87,  On  the  other  hand,  the  extreme  protectionists 
feared  that  Adams  was  not  fully  enough  committed  to  the  American 
System  and  wished  to  take  him  at  his  word. 


THE   TARIFF  AND   NULLIFICATION.  261 

that  duties  were  the  cause  of  a  fall  in  prices,  and  asserted 
that  the  same  competition,  and  hence  the  same  fall, 
would  have  taken  place  had  the  tariff  of  1828  not  been 
passed.  On  the  other  hand,  he  denied  as  positively  the 
equally  extravagant  statement  of  the  South  that  the 
producer  of  the  exported  article,  instead  of  the  con- 
sumer, paid  the  duty.  The  doctrine  of  an  irreconcilable 
opposition  of  interest  between  North  and  Souih,  he 
declared  could  not  be  true;  it  would  make  union  impos- 
sible. Representing  as  they  did  the  manufacturing 
interest  of  the  country,  the  committee  had  anxiously 
desired  to  adapt  their  provisions,  not  only  to  the  interests, 
but  to  the  feelings  of  that  portion  of  the  country  which 
had  considered  itself  most  aggrieved  by  the  existing 
tariff;  but  at  the  same  time,  they  had  been  equally 
anxious  to  make  all  concessions  required  without  any 
essential  sacrifice  of  the  interest  entrusted  to  them.* 

The  temperate  and  unpartisan  nature  of  Adams7 
report  doubtless  did  much  to  win  acceptance  of  his  bill.f 
South  Carolina  refused  to  accept  it,  and  various  tariff 
meetings  denounced  it  because  it  sacrificed  too  inuch.J 

*  42  Niles,  244  et  seq ;  232  et  sey. 

t  J.  S.  Barbour  of  Virginia  declared  that  it  seemed  far  more  objec- 
tionable to  Southern  views  than  McLane's  bill,  but  under  all  circum- 
stances he  thought  it  better  to  accept  it  than  to  hazard  the  acceptance 
of  far  greater  evils  (42  Niles,  247.) 

J  A  tariff  meeting  at  Philadelphia,  opposed  to  both  the  McLane  bill 
and  the  Adams'  bill,  adopted  the  following  resolution :  "  That  the 
free  American  workman,  who  lives  well,  and  commands  all  the  com- 
forts and  many  of  the  luxuries  of  life,  cannot  be  expected  to  manufac- 
ture as  cheaply  as  the  ill-fed  operative  of  Europe;  that  much  as  we 
deprecate  any  legislation  that  shall  equalize  the  value  of  our  free  labor 
with  that  of  foreign  paupers,  we  deprecate  still  more  the  pauper  morals 
that  must  necessarily  follow  such  a  course,  and  we  hold  any  man  or  party 
of  men  who  seek  to  reduce  our  working  classes  to  this  state  of  poverty, 
dependence,  and  immorality,  to  be  enemies  of  their  welfare  especially, 
and  hostile  to  the  prosperity  of  our  common  country  "  (42  Niles,  277.) 


262  THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY. 

But  in  the  midst  of  renewed  excitement  it  finally 
passed,  July  14,  1832,  opposed  by  the  great  majority  of 
Southern  members  and  by  a  section  of  extreme  protec- 
tionists.* 

The  McDuffie  bill  had  been  regarded  by  South  Car- 
olina as  a  sort  of  ultimatum.  Its  rejection  was  clearly 
foreseen  from  the  first,  and  the  anger  of  the  State  rose 
hot  against  the  gigantic  oppression  which  they  imagined 
the  tariff  to  be.  They  had  been,  they  affirmed,  absolutely 
denied  a  hearing  by  the  protectionists  of  the  North, 
who  had  met  them  in  a  spirit  that  proposed,  in  the 
words  of  Clay,  "  to  defy  the  South,  the  President,  and 
the  Devil."  f  Before  the  fate  of  the  McDuffie  bill  was 
settled  a  great  meeting  of  the  Union  and  State  Rights 
party  at  Charleston  had  agreed  upon  the  calling  of  a 
Southern  Convention,  in  case  Congress  should  adjourn 
without  a  satisfactory  adjustment  of  the  tariff.^  After  the 
passage  of  the  Adams'  bill,  meetings  were  held  at  which 
it  was  resolved  to  resist  the  law  at  every  hazard. 
Immediately  upon  the  passage  of  the  measure,  the 
senators  and  representatives  from  South  Carolina  drew 
up,  in  Washington,  an  address  to  the  people  of  their  state, 
in  which,  while  no  remedy  violent  or  otherwise  was 
suggested,  it  was  declared  that  all  hope  of  redress  was 
irrecoverably  gone,  and  that  it  only  remained  for  the 
sovereign  State  of  South  Carolina  to  determine  whether 
its  rights  and  liberties  should  be  maintained. § 

Temperate  discussion,  however,was  impossible.  South 
Carolina  in  her  resentment  refused  to  listen  to  reason. 


*  For  vote  in  the  House,  see  42  Niles,  336. 

t  See  Stunner's  Jackson,  222. 

$  42  Mies,  300. 

§  See  42  Niles,  385,  412. 


THE   TARIFF   AND  NULLIFICATION.  263 

Nullification  and  disunion  were  everywhere  and  openly 
preached.  A  Southern  Convention,  to  which  project 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Alabama,  had 
given  favorable  consideration,  was  altogether  too  slow 
and  feeble  a  mode  of  expression,  and  South  Carolina, 
without  waiting  for  co-operation  or  approval, proclaimed, 
by  the  solemn  declaration  of  a  sovereign  State,  the  nul- 
lity of  the  new  tariff  law.  * 

But  the  precipitancy  of  South  Carolina  isolated  her 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  Union.  Attention  was  drawn 
from  the  enormities  of  the  tariff  to  the  enormity  of  tne 
proposed  remedy.  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Alabama, 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana, 
hastened  to  disavow  all  sympathy,  and  even  Georgia 
drew  back  and  returned  to  the  proposal  of  a  Southern 
Convention,  f 

When  Congress  met  in  December,  the  presidential 
election  was  over.  Clay  was  defeated,  and  in  his  ruin 
seemed  involved  the  ruin  of  the  projects  he  had 

*  Toaets  drunk  at  Edisto,  S.  C. :  1.  Andrew  Jackson — his  example 
when  a  boy  has  taught  the  youth  of  Carolina  to  despise  his  threats  when 
a  man.  2.  Nullification  is  the  rightful  remedy — South  Carolina  will 
never  submit  to  a  Yankee  tariff  while  there  grows  on  her  soil  a  pal- 
metto tree.  3.  Let  us  hesitate  no  longer — we  ought,  we  must,  and  will 
resist  the  encroachments  on  our  rights  at  any  and  every  hazard.  4. 
Governor  Hamilton — wherever  there  are  on  this  day  two  or  three 
gathered  together  in  the  name  of  nullification,  would  to  God  he  could 
be  in  the  midst  of  them. 

A  seven  striped  flag  was  hoisted  at  Oglethorpe,  Georgia, — in  allusion 
to  the  seven  Southern  States.  Among  the  toasts  were  the  following : 
1.  Self-redress — the  only  remaining  remedy  for  the  oppressions  of  the 
South.  2.  The  present  crisis — let  us  have  no  more  of  the  sickly  cant 
about  brotherly  love  and  sacredness  of  the  Union;  they  who  shook  off 
the  tyrannical  oppression  of  their  mother  country  will  not  hesitate  to 
resist  that  of  their  sister  States.  See  43  Niles,  77  et  seq. 

t  See  43  Niles,  209,  219,  220. 


264  THE    TARIFF      CONTROVERSY. 

announced  as  at  stake  in  the  contest.  Still  there  was 
hope  that  between  the  Northern  democratic  support  of 
protection  and  the  general  horror  of  nullification,  the 
tariff  would  come  through  unscathed. 

Jackson  met  the  crisis  with  a  mixture  of  firmness  and 
concession.  A  few  days  after  his  annual  message,  which 
barely  alluded  to  the  South  Carolina  troubles,  he  issued 
a  proclamation  denouncing  nullification  and  warning 
the  people  of  South  Carolina  that  the  laws  would  be 
enforced.  South  Carolina  answered  with  spirit  and 
defiance,  while  the  North  rang  with  applause  for  Jack- 
son. The  President  had  echoed  the  constitutional 
doctrines  of  Webster,  and  asked  Congress  to  enforce 
them.  Meanwhile  his  annual  message  had  discussed 
the  tariff  problem  at  length,  arguing  that  protection 
should  be  confined  to  articles  of  necessity  in  time  of 
war.  The  Committee  on  Manufactures  being  unable  to 
agree  on  a  measure,  Verplanck,  from  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee,  brought  forward  a  bill  for  generally 
reducing  duties  to  the  revenue  standpoint,  which  was 
understood  to  have  the  approval  of  the  President — a 
measure,  Niles  declared,  marked  by  cold  blooded  insen- 
sibility or  reckless  cruelty,  whose  passage  would  seal  the 
fate  of  the  Union.* 

The  winter  was  one  of  feverish  excitement.  Webster 
cordially  supported  the  Force  bill,  but  resolutely  resisted 
any  changes  in  the  tariff;  and  this  was  the  general 
protectionist  attitude.  The  South  Carolina  Convention 
solemnly  denounced  the  President's  proclamation,  but 
postponed,  in  view  of  the  tariff  discussion,  the  execution 
of  the  ordinance  of  nullification.  Protectionists  stood 
firm,  believing  that  the  Verplanck  tariff  would  be  the 


*  43  Niles,  313. 


THE   TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION.  265 

death  blow  to  the  American  System,*  and  looking  to 
Jackson  to  make  good  his  proclamation.  On  the  other 
side,  South  Carolina  was  sullen  and  determined,  and 
without  a  reduction  of  the  tariff  could  count  on  the 
active  sympathy  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia, 
and  Alabama. 

While  affairs  were  in  this  unsettled  state,  Clay  ap- 
peared, three  weeks  before  the  end  of  the  session,  with 
his  compromise  tariff.  It  hardly  differed  from  the 
Verplanck  bill  except  in  postponing  the  evil  day  and 
gradually  letting  all  protected  articles  down  to  a  general 
level  of  20  per  cent.  Viewed  purely  from  its  economic 
side  the  measure  was  sound  enough  and  could  have  no 
serious  results.  But  it  came  too  late  and  too  much  as  a 
forced  measure  to  have  its  full  and  healthful  effect.  It 
was  introduced  without  the  approval  or  even  knowledge 
of  his  party,  and  came  to  most  of  its  members  like 
thunder  out  of  a  clear  sky.  Webster  denounced  it  to 
the  last,  and  when  it  finally  passed  it  was  mainly  by 
Southern  votes  and  against  the  almost  solid  front  of 
Clay's  own  party.  Clay  was  naturally  a  partisan  and 
fond  of  political  strife;  but  in  moments  of  real  or  sup- 
posed national  peril  his  mind  took  the  easy  but  not 
always  clear  course  of  compromise.  In  this  case  he 
declared  that  the  measure  was  necessary  to  save  any 
part  of  the  American  System.  But  Webster's  logic  was 
unanswerable :  "  The  honorable  member  from  Ken- 
tucky says  the  tariff  is  in  imminent  danger ;  that 
if  not  destroyed  this  session  it  cannot  survive  the 
next.  This  may  be  so,  sir.  This  may  be  so.  But  if  it 
be  so,  it  is  because  the  American  people  will  not  sanc- 
tion the  tariff;  and  if  they  will  not,  why  then,  sir,  it 

*  43  Niles,  297. 


266  THE   TARIFF    CONTROVERSY. 

cannot  be  sustained  at  all."  *  But  all  he  could  do  was 
to  insist  that  the  Compromise  bill  should  not  pass  until 
after  the  Force  bill,  and  that  Calhoun,  bitter  as  it  was 
to  him,  should  first  vote  for  the  Force  bill. 

As  to  who  really  won  was  long  a  matter  of  dispute. 
The  flame  of  nullification  blazed  out  fiercely  at  dinners 
and  Fourth  of  July  celebrations,  but  it  had  no  present 
meaning.  South  Carolina  exultantly  claimed  the  vic- 
tory, while  the  North  applauded  to  the  echo  Jackson's 
bold  vindication  of  the  Constitution.  Clay  and  Calhoun 
long  after  wrangled  over  the  matter  in  the  Senate. 
Calhoun  declared  that  Clay,  flat  on  his  back,  had  per- 
ceived in  the  Compromise  the  only  chance  of  saving  his 
political  future,  and  but  for  Calhoun,  would  have 
sunk  to  rise  no  more.  Clay  retorted  that  it  was  he  who 
had  kept  the  rope  from  Calhoun's  neck,  which  Jackson 
had  ready  for  him.  The  truth  is  that  both  sides  wavered 
when  the  crisis  came,  and  to  the  majority  in  Congress, 
Clay's  Compromise  seemed  a  happy  issue  out  of  all  their 
afflictions.  The  tariff  question  was  made  quiescent  and 
postponed  to  a  more  convenient  season,  when,  at  least, 
it  might  be  dissociated  from  the  irrelevant  and  dangerous 
question  of  constitutional  interpretation. 


*  43  Nilea,  417. 

The  compromise  tariff  provided  that  one-tenth  of  the  excess  of  all 
duties  above  20  per  cent  should  be  struck  off  Sept.  30,  1835,  and  so  on 
each  alternate  year  until  1841 ;  then  one-half  of  the  remaining  excess; 
and  in  1842  the  remainder,  leaving  a  horizontal  rate  of  20  per  cent.  The 
bill  was  very  loosely  worded,  and  much  difficulty  was  experienced  in 
administering  it. 


LIST  OF  AUTHORITIES  CITED. 


Adams,  Henry.  History  of  the  United  States,  1801-1817.  9  vols. 
New  York,  1890-91.— Life  of  John  Randolph.  (American  States- 
men Series.)  Boston,  1882. 

Adams,  Henry  Carter.    Public  Debts.    New  York,  1887. 

Adams,  John.  Works,  edited  by  C.  F.  Adams.  10  vols.  Boston, 
1850-56. 

Adams,  John  Quincy.  Memoirs,  etc.,  edited  by  C.  F.  Adams.  12  vols. 
Philadelphia,  1874-77. 

Ames,  Fisher.    Life,  edited  by  S.  Ames.    2  vols.    Boston,  1854. 

Annals  of  Congress,  1789-1824.    42  vols.    Washington,  1834-56. 

Bancroft,  George.  History  of  the  United  States.  6  vols.  New  York, 
1888. 

Bishop,  J.  Leander.  History  of  American  Manufactures,  160S-18CO. 
3  vols.  Philadelphia,  1861-1868. 

Chalmers,  George.    Political  Annals.    Book  I.    London,  1770. 

Clay,  Henry.    Works,  edited  by  C.  Colton.    6  vols.    New  York,  1857. 

Cunningham,  J.  (?).    Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce.     London,  1770. 

Cunningham,  W.    Politics  and  Economics.    London,  1885. 

Dickinson,  John.    Political  Writings.     2  vols.     Wilmington,  1801. 

Documents  Relating  to  the  Colonial  History  of  New  York.  10  vols. 
Albany,  1856-58. 

Elliot,  Jonathan.  Debates  on  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 
5  vols.  Philadelphia,  1861. 

Fisher,  Willard  Clark.  American  Trade  Regulations  before  1789. 
Printed  in  vol.  iii  of  Publications  of  the  American  Historical  Associ- 
ation. New  York,  1889. 

Fiske,  John.    The  Critical  Period  of  American  History.    Boston,  1888. 

Franklin,  Benjamin.  Works,  edited  by  John  Bigelow.  10  vols.  New 
York,  1887-89. 

Gallatin,  Albert.  Writings,  edited  by  Henry  Adams.  3  vols.  Phila- 
delphia, 1879. 

(267) 


268  LIST    OF   AUTHORITIES   CITED. 

Hamilton,  Alexander.    Works,  edited  by  H.  C.  Lodge.    9  vols.    New 

York,  1885-86. 
Hildreth,  Kichard.     History  of   the    United  States.      6  vols.     New 

York,  1851-56. 

Jefferson,  Thomas.    Works.    9  vols.    Washington,  1853. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.    History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

vols.  i-ix.    New  York,  1888-90. 
Maclay,  William.     Sketches  of  Debate  in  the  First  Senate  of  the  United 

States,  edited  by  G.  W.  Harris.    New  York,  1882. 
McMaster,  John  Bach.    History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States. 

vols.  i-iii.    New  York,  1883-91. 

Macpherson,  David.    Annals  of  Commerce.    4  vols.    London,  1805. 
Madison,  James.    Letters  and  other  writings.    4  vols.    Philadelphia, 

1865. 

Niles'  Weekly  Register.    60  vols.    Baltimore,  1811-1836. 
Pownall,  Thomas.    The  Administration  of  the  Colonies.    London,  1764. 

— Considerations  on  Taxing  the  Colonies.    London,  1766. 
Schouler,  James.     History  of  the  United  States,     vols.  i-iv.    Washing- 
ton, 1887.     [vol.  v.  and  new  edition,  New  York,  1890-91.] 
Schurz,  Carl.    Life    of    Henry  Clay.      (American  Statesmen  Series.) 

2  vols.    Boston,  1890. 
Smith,  Adam.    Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of 

Nations,  edited  by  J.  E.  T.  Rogers.    2  vols.     Oxford,  1880. 
Statesman's  Manual.    2  vols.    New  York,  1846. 
Statutes  at  Large  of  Great  Britain.    46  vols.    Cambridge,  1762-1807. 
Sumner,  William  Graham.    Life  of  Andrew  Jackson.   (American  States- 
men Series.)    Boston,  1882.— Life  of  Alexander  Hamilton.    (Makers 

of  America  Series.)    New  York,  1890. 

Taussig,  F.  W.    Tariff  History  of  the  United  States.    New  York,  1888. 
Washington,  George.  Works,  edited  by  Jared  Sparks.   12  vols.    Boston, 

1834-38. 
Winsor,  Justin.    Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America.    8  vols. 

Boston,  1886-89. 
Young,  Edward.     Customs-Tariff  Legislation  of   the  United    States. 

Washington,  1872. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  on  agriculture,  41;  manu- 
factures. 41;  non-intercourse,  42,  43; 
free  trade,  46,  51,  52,  53;  reception  in 
England,  47;  on  proclamation  of  July 
2,  1783,  47;  on  retaliation,  48,  50,  52; 
anti-republicanism,  115. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  federalistic  principles,  236; 
approves  "tariff  of  abominations," 
243;  attitude  toward  tariff  in  1832,  258; 
report  on  tariff,  260. 

Agriculture,  25;  Franklin  on,  25,  34,  65 ; 
Jefferson  on,  39;  Washington  on,  40, 
62;  Ellsworth  on,  20,  40;  Adams  on, 
41;  pre-eminence  of,  60,  72;  Hartley 
on,  128 ;  petitions  of  agricultural 
societies,  225,  227. 

American  Society  for  the  Encouragement 
of  Domestic  Manufactures,  194,  201, 
209. 

American  system,  201,  212 ;  Clay  on,  232  ; 
necessity  of  maintaining,  2o5. 

Ames,  Fisher,  69;  on  tariff  of  1789,  72,  81, 
86, 91;  on  loss  of  revenue,  75;  on  pro- 
hibition of  nails,  84;  on  constitutional 
question  116;  on  protection,  129. 

Balance  of  trade,  26,  55. 

Baldwin  on  tariff  of  1824, 210. 

Bidwell  on  tariff,  143. 

Board  ot  Trade,  15, 16. 

Boston  resolutions  regarding  manufac- 
tures, 31. 

Bounties  on  Colonial  productions,  15; 
granted  by  colonies,  16 ;  on  salt,  17  ; 
proposed  by  Gallatin,  149;  favored  by 
Jefferson,  145;  Dallas  on,  170  ;  favored 
by  Hamilton,  106,  111.  See  also  pre- 
miums. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,on  tariff  of  1816,  179; 
defeats  tariff  bill  of  1827,  239;  on  nul- 
lification, 250;  votes  for  force  bill,  266; 
tilt  with  Clay,  266. 


Candles  in  tariff  of  1789,  82. 

Capital,  creation  of,  149;  lack  of,  102, 148. 
219. 

Carey,  Matthew,  on  protection,  198,  201, 
254. 

Charleston  Memorial,  1820,  236. 

Clay,  Henry,  on  protection,  143, 184 ;  on 
tariff  of  1816, 183, 185;  on  the  American 
system,  201,  212;  on  tariff  of  1824,  231; 
on  effect  of  tariff,  236,  259;  on  South- 
ern discontent,  258, 262;  compromise 
tariff,  265;  tilt  with  Calhoun,  266. 

Clinton,  George,  on  the  Constitution,  58. 

Clothing,  household  manufacture  of, 
147. 

Colonial  System,  general  characteristics, 
6,  10;  feeling  of  colonies  toward,  14; 
not  wholly  one-sided,  15. 

Colonies,  growth  of  industrial  spirit  in, 
6;  function  of ,  8  ;  useful  to  England, 
14;  commerce  of,  9, 10;  manufactures 
of,  12,  25,  27,  30;  industries  of,  en- 
couraged, 15;  legislation  of ,  17,56;  see 
also  under  Bounties,  Embargo. 

Commerce,  importance  of,  119,  120,  162; 
growth  of,  130;  blows  directed  against, 
133;  commercial  war  between  States, 
20,  59  ;  with  England,  50 ;  see  also 
Trade. 

Commercial  legislation,  effect  of  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  upon,  18. 

Commercial  supremacy  of  England,  49, 
59. 

Competition,  how  regarded,  200. 

Compromise  tariff,  265. 

Confederation,  regulations  of  trade  un- 
der, 18,  20;  weakness  of,  58,  59;  hope- 
ful conditions,  60,  61,  63,  64. 

Congress,  first  meeting  of  under  the 
Constitution,  67,  74. 

Constitutional  question,  72,  116,  117,  119, 
254. 


(269) 


270 


INDEX 


Continental  Congress,  18;  weakness  of,  59. 

Convention  of  1787,  21. 

Cordage  in  tariff  of  1789,  85. 

Cotton,  proposal  to  remove  duty  from, 

118;  manufacture  of,  147, 160;  debate 

on  tariff  of  1816, 183. 
Crawford,  W.  H.,  on  tariff,  190,  230, 231. 

Dallas,  tariff  bill,  165, 167, 185 ;  debate  on 
tariff  bill,  170. 

Dickinson,  John,  on  colonial  feeling 
toward  England,  14;  on  manufac- 
tures, 40. 

Discrimination  in  favor  of  colonial 
produce,  15. 

Diversification  of  industry,  Hamilton 
on,  104. 

Division  of  labor,  Hamilton  on,  97. 

Dummer  J.,  on  dependence  of  colonies 
on  England,  23. 

Economic  thought  in  colonies,  22. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  on  manufactures,  40. 

Embargo,  130, 133;  hostility  towards  Jef- 
ferson's, 134;  of  1812, 159. 

England,  feeling  regarding  American 
trade,  48, 124 ;  devotion  to  Navigation 
Act,  49 ;  commercial  supremacy  of, 
59;  reciprocity  with,  44, 122;  embargo 
against,  130. 

Eppes,  on  Non-Importation  Act,  142. 

Federalists,  hatred  of  Jefferson,  134. 

Fitzsimons,  on  tariff,  71,  80,  82. 

Franklin,  B.,  colonial  feeling  toward 
England,  14;  relation  between  colo- 
nies and  England,  23, 25, 29 ;  on  manu- 
factures, 24,  25, 27,  30,  35:  on  agricul- 
ture, 25, 34;  examination  of,  in  House 
of  Commons,  26, 29;  plea  for  freedom, 
28  ;  on  Boston  resolutions,  31 ;  on 
tariff,  33,  36,  39  ;  on  the  physiocrats, 
34 ;  on  reciprocity,  43 ;  prosperity 
•  under  confederation,  64, 65. 

Free  Trade,  basis  of  Franklin's  terms  of 
peace,  35 ;  general  feeling  of  Ameri- 
cans, 38,  42,  53,  94,  216  ;  Adams  on,  46, 
61,  52;  Hamilton  on,  54,  55,  58;  Madi- 
son on ,  69, 70, 77 ;  argument  for  in  1789, 
70;  in  tariff  debate,  72. 

French  Revolution,  Jefferson's  sympathy 
with,  122;  sympathy  of  Americans 
with,  123. 

Furnaces  destroyed  as  nuisances,  13. 


Gallatin,  on   tariff,  137,   138;   on  manu- 
factures, 147,  149;  memorial  of,  255. 
Georgia,  rejects  tariff  of  1781, 19. 
Gold,  on  tariff  of  1816, 178. 


Hamilton,  A.,  on  regulation  of  trade,  18, 
55;  on  freedom  of  trade,  54,  55,  58; 
American  policy  of,  54,  56,94;  wisdom 
of  commercial  regulations,  56,  57;  on 
price  of  labor,  57. 

Hamilton's  report  on  manufactures,  95- 
112;  characterization  of,  113;  effect 
of  on  politics,  117;  attitude  of  toward 
commerce,  120;  promotes  trade  with 
England,  121;  denounced  by  Jeffer- 
son, 115, 122. 

Harrison,  B.,  on  constitution,  58. 

Harrisburg  Convention,  239. 

Hartley,  on  manufactures,  76,  95;  on 
tariff,  128 

Hats,  manufacture  of,  12. 

Hemp,  in  tariff  of  1789,  85. 

Home  market,  Hamilton  on,  98;  monopoly 
of,  134. 

Hunter,  report  to  board  of  trade,  15. 

Ingham,  on  tariff  of  1816, 177. 

Intercolonial  trade,  11. 

Iron  manufactures,  12, 13, 217. 


Jackson,  A.,  campaign  of,  237;  equivocal 
position  on  tariff,  250 ;  union  feeling, 
251 ;  proclamation  against  nullifica- 
tion, 264. 

Jay,  efforts  for  reciprocity,  43. 

Jay  treaty,  130. 

Jefferson,  T.,  on  agriculture,  40;  on 
•'Chinese  Wall,"  42;  on  regulation 
of  trade,  45;  on  free  trade,  53;  ou  the 
period  of  confederation,  58,  63;  on 
Hamilton's  report,  115, 122;  report  on 
condition  of  trade  with  foreign  coun- 
tries, 124;  debate  on  report,  126;  re- 
port on  commerce,  122;  sympathy 
with  French  Revolution,  122;  preju- 
dice against  commerce,  131;  attitude 
toward  commerce  at  beginning  of  his 
administration,  131 ;  attitude  toward 
England  and  France,  132;  Louisiana 
purchase,  132;  on  surplus  revenue, 
134;  ideas  during  retirement,  136;  on 
Missouri  struggle,  234. 


INDEX 


271 


Labor,  price  of,  57 ;  hindrance  to  manu- 
factures 8,  25,  37,  33,  57,  102, 142, 156  ; 
not  a  hindrance,  145, 151,  206. 

Laissez-faire,  53,  69,  94,  101,  106,  129,  166, 
172,  202,  214,  216,  219,  232,  255. 

Laws  of  trade,  10, 11, 12;  nullity  of,  16. 

Lecky,  W.  E.,  colonial  policy  of  Eng- 
land, 5. 

Lexington  memorial  on  tariff,  157. 

Lords  commissioners  of  trades  and  plan- 
tations, 15. 

Lowndes,  introduces  bill  of  1816,  167; 
debate  on,  183;  on  manufactures,  221. 

Lousiana  purchase,  132. 

Lyon,  on  tariff,  154. 

McDuffle,  report  in  1828,  244;  on  tariff, 
245;  bill  of  1832,  259,  262. 

McLane,  on  tariff  of  1824,  212;  report  of 
1832,  259. 

Maclay,  W.,  extreme  views,  68;  on  tariff 
debate,  71,  73. 

Macon,  on  non-importation  act,  142. 

Madison,  J.,  on  free-trade,  38;  on 
trade,  44,  53,  69,  70,  77;  condition 
under  confederation,  60;  introduces 
tariff  of  1789,  67;  advocates  pro- 
tection, 69,  78;  opens  tariff  discus- 
sion, 73;  on  tonnage  duties,  90;  on  lim- 
its of  federal  power,  119;  responsible 
for  tariff  of  1789, 121;  on  tariff,  77,137; 
on  manufactures,  165, 189. 

Mallary,  on  tariff,  238. 

Manufactures,  fear  of  colonial,  8,  9; 
encouraged  in  colonies,  17,  31; 
Franklin  on,  23,  24,  25,  27,  30, 
84,  35,  39;  conditions  and  extent 
of  In  colonies,  32,  41;  Dickinson 
on,  40;  progress  of,  under  Consti- 
tution, 62;  Hartley  on,  78;  Hamilton 
on,  95-112;  stimulated  by  decline  of 
commerce,  134;  demand  of  country 
for  protection  of,  138, 141, 144, 158, 164, 
166,  192,  206, 208;  sentiment  of  coun- 
try in  favor  of,  143;  household  manu- 
facture of  clothing,  147, 171;  relation  of 
land  to  growth  of,  147 ;  causes  retard- 
ing, 148, 149;  Gallatin  on,  147, 149;  de- 
bate on  Gallatin's  report,  150;  state  of, 
158;  growth  of,  during  war  of  1812, 
160;  attitude  of  country  after  war  of 
1812,  163,  171;  effect  of  tariff  of  1816 
on,  186,  188;  commercial  depression, 
194;  state  of  after  1820, 228. 


See  also  under  American  Society 
for  the  Encouragement  of  Domestic 
Manufactures;  Boston  resolutions; 
bounties;  candles; clothing;  colonies, 
cotton;  furnaces;  free-trade;  hats, 
hemp,  iron;  nails;  paper;  protection; 
prohibitive  duties;  premiums;  tariff; 
trade. 

Marsters,  on  embargo,  143. 

Markets,  American,  57. 

Maryland  encourages  manufactures,  16, 
17. 

Massachusetts  encourages  manufactures' 
16, 17,  20. 

Mercantile  system',  6,  7, 10,  21;  Hamilton 
on,  56. 

Molasses  act,  11, 16;  in  tariff  of  1789,  81. 

Monroe,  J.,  on  tariff,  190. 

Nails,  manufacture  of,  14;  In  tariff  of 

1789,  84. 

Napoleon,  dealings  with  Jefferson,  132. 
Navigation  acts,  8,  9, 10, 11, 12, 127. 
New  England  opposes  increase  of  tariff, 

217,  219. 
New  York,  early  tariffs,  17;  refuses  assent 

to  bill  of  1783,  20. 
New  York  Convention,  255. 
Niles,  H.,  on  crisis  after  1815,  188;   on 

protection,  201,  207;    on  Harrisburg 

Convention,  240;  on  tariff  of  1828, 240. 
Non-importation  act,  debate  on,  142. 
North,  Hamilton  on   conflict    between 

north  and  south,  104. 
Nullification,  235,  251,  253,  263. 

Oneida  memorial  on  tariff,  193. 

Page,  on  tariff,  118. 

Paper,  manufacture  of,  147. 

Paper  money,  experiments  in,  59. 

Philadelphia  Convention,  255. 

Physiocrats  criticised  by  Hamilton,  54, 97. 

Pig-iron,  12, 13. 

Pownall,  T.,  colonial  affection  for  Eng- 
land, 14. 

Premiums,  Hamilton  on,  108;  Gallatin 
on,  149;  Dallas  on,  170. 

Prohibitive  duties,  196,  199;  Hamilton 
on,  105. 

Protection,  Franklin  on,  33,39;  Hamilton 
on,  56,  57;  Madison  on,  69,  70,  72; 
Hartley  on,  76;  period  from  1783  to 
1789,  58;  Ames  on,  72,  128;  demand  of 


272 


INDEX 


country  for,  138, 141,  144,  157,  158,  164, 
166,  192,206,  208;  sentiment  of  country 
regarding,  143,  201;  growth  of,  215, 
216;  Gallatin's  report  and  debate  on 
it,  149;  Hamilton  on  articles  proper 
to  be  protected,  109. 

See  also  under  American  system; 
bounties;  Carey,  M.;  free  trade; 
Niles.H.;  manufactures;  tariff. 

Quincy,  J.,  on  repeal  of  salt  tax,  141. 

Randolph,  J.,  on  tariff  of  1816, 172. 

Reciprocity,  18,  99;  not  secured,  47;  im- 
possible, 49,  69;  Franklin  on,  43;  Jay's 
efforts  for,  43;  Hamilton  on,  125;  Clay 
on,  212. 

Regulation  of  trade,  18, 19,  20. 

Restraints  on  trade,  disadvantages  of,  35. 

Retaliation,  43;  suggested  by  Madison, 
45;  by  Washington,  46;  by  Adams, 
48,  50. 

Rhode  Island,  early  tariff  legislation,  17; 
rejects  tariff  of  1781,19. 

Revenuo,  kept  in  mind  by  Hamilton, 
main  consideration  in  1789,  73;  atti- 
tude toward,  199. 


Salt,  in  tariff  of  1789,  87. 

Sectional  feeling,  68,  92,  234, 236,  246. 

Seybert,  on  protection,  150. 

Smith,  A.,  Hamilton  on,  54,94;  Carey  on, 
202. 

Smith,  W.,  on  tariff,  126. 

South,  attitude  towards  tariff  of  1789, 71; 
Hamilton  on,  104;  on  manufactures 
after  1812, 164;  relation  of  to  tariff  of 
1816,215;  attitude  after  1816,  215,  217; 
toward  tariff  of  1824,  224,  232  ;  of 
1828,  244;  Union  feeling  in,  246,249; 
see  also  Nullification. 

South  Carolina,  feeling  toward  tariff,  244, 
246,  247;  refuses  compromise,  252,  261, 
•  divided  as  to  nullification,  253;  vio- 
lence of  feeling,  262;  nullifies  tariff 
law,  263. 

Steel  in  tariff  of  1789,83. 

Sugar,  debate  on  Dallas  bill,  183. 

Tariff,  legislation  of  the  colonies,  17;  ef- 
fect of  Declaration  of  Independence, 
18;  under  the  confederation,  19,  20; 
Franklin  on  necessity  of  under  the 


Constitution,  36;    South  hostile  to, 
142;    Gallatin    on,    137,    133. 

Tariffs,  1781;  Georgia  and  Rhode  Island 
refuse  assent  to,  19;  1783, 19;  Frank- 
lin on,  27 ;  1789,  67 ;  character  of  de- 
bate on,  68,  debate, 71-91,  dissastisf ac- 
tion with,  91,  working  of,  93;  1792, 
118;  18^2, 159;  1816, 167;  opposition  to, 
172,  disappointment  to  manufac- 
turers, 186,  191, 195,  196;  result  of,  188; 
216,  1820,  210,  debate  on,  220;  1824, 
206,231,237;  1824,  288;  1827,  23-J;  1828, 
243,  254;  becomes  a  partisan  question 
239;  1832,  259,  262;  1833,  265. 

Tariff  of  abominations,  244. 

Telfair,  on  tariff  of  1816, 172, 174. 

Tobacco,  15. 

Tod,  on  tariff,  231. 

Tonnage  duties,  discriminating,  89;  re- 
jected by  Senate,  121. 

Trade,  regulations  of  under  confedera- 
tion, 18,  20;  Congress  given  power  to 
regulate,  21;  Hamilton  on,  18,  55;  dis- 
advantages of  restraints  on,  35. 

See  also  commerce;  balance  of  trade; 
Board  of  Trade;  free  trade. 

Tucker,  on  tariff  of  1789,  75,  88. 

Tyler  on  tariff  of  1820,  222. 

Van  Buren,  on  tariff,  241. 

Virginia  encourages  manufactures,  16, 

tariff,  17,  20;  remonstrance  of  1820, 

225,  235. 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions,  235. 

Wages,  57,  64,  66,  102. 

War  of  1812,  159;  effect  of  on  manufac- 
tures, 160. 

Washington,  G.,  favors  agriculture,  40; 
adopts  policy  of  retaliation,  46;  on 
weakness  of  the  confederation,  59; 
hopeful  conditions  under  the  con- 
federation, 60, 61;  prophecyof  the  Con- 
stitution, 61,  62;  tries  to  secure  reci- 
procity, 121. 

Webster,  D.,  on  tariff  of  1816, 175,  184;  on 
tariff  of  1824,  233;  on  compromise 
tariff,  265. 

West  Indies,  trade  with  colonies,  11. 

Wool,  manufacture  in  colonies,  12;  in 
tariff  of  1816, 183;  want  of,  an  obstacle 
to  home  manufacture,  147;  in  tariff 
of  1824,  237;  in  tariff  of  1827,  238. 


\  1  . 


M  V 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


HJan52WK 


230ct59|RR 


REC'D  LD 


APR  2  6    s9 


REC'D  1- 


STACKS 

p  1 0 1964 
"'D  CD 


REC'D  LD 

JUL29'65-2.PM 


LD  21-100m-9,'48(B399sl6)476 


HP 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


